Is it wrong to tell a potential customer this...

[inhawaii]

A customer messaged me.  She was interested in 2 similar items.  She asked me what the shipping would be.  I told her $6 for the first item and $3 for each additional.  I have combined shipping set up.

She then asked me to bundle the 2 items together and she will purchase them.

I told her just put the 2 items in your cart and check out and it will charge you to correct amount.  Was that wrong?  Would you have made a bundled listing for her?

She never did go through with the purchase.

[Anonymous]

If you don't want people bothering you needlessly and your sure of your listing build, I sometimes just send a link of the listing back to them. But you can be personable and start a conversation with them also, either way is fine. There are several ways. I like the way that works best, I hate dumb questions when I know the info is in my listing. Some times people just want to contact a real person and have no intention of buying anything. I have no advise, just follow your instincts and don't be rude to them.

[rosszonebricks]

I don't think you were wrong.  Your store is already set up to actually do what she asked without even needing anything special.

It's late 2022.  We should not need to teach buyers how to use a online Shopping Cart.

I'm with you.  I'll explain to buyers how to use the cart, but I won't create custom listings for them.

[readabouthorses]

I looked at a couple of your listings. I see the option to combine when I looked at one of your candy listings. However when I look at one of your T-shirt listings I see combining mentioned in the description but I don't see that option on the shipping page so I would wonder, as a buyer, if the shipping would actually combine if I purchased 2 T-shirts.

[natoman777]

@inhawaii 

I think this might be connected to how buyers experience things on other platforms.  Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, Poshmark all pretty much require you to create a bundle.  I have had to talk buyers into doing what you wanted them to do.  All reluctantly agree after many messages.  It is just more work for us a seller to end listings and create "bundles".  I don't think you were wrong, it is just most buyers don't understand the process

[sapphire_studio]

I would have definitely directed them to doing in a cart ( Trying to explain in detail how they can accomplish this)  But I would  Have been careful with my wording so they don't interpret me as rude if they are very sensitive. I would have probably said something along the lines of "That should be a lot easier for both of us however if you can't figure out how to do it just send me a message and I'd be happy to create a listing for you."

 This is of course assuming the sale is actually worth the time of creating a listing (I try not to price anything under $10 so usually any combined sale would be worth the effort for me).  However I'm only shipping a few packages a day at the moment.  If I was shipping like 60 a day like I have in the past it might be another story.