mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
I've been selling for a little over a year and will soon acquire my TRS Plus so I switched all of my listings to offer "free shipping" to get the 10% discount on the entire amount rather than just the item price and shipping being separate.
Free shipping is not a requirement for TRS or TRS+.
However now I can't seem to offer combined shipping discounts for customers who want to purchase multiples of anything as the buyer can no longer request an invoice and eBay doesn't give seller's any means to generate an invoice to send to buyers.
Why would you do that if you are offering free shipping? If you aren't stating shipping separately, there is no way to offer a discount on the shipping.
And some buyers don't want to pay the full price and then receive a refund back.
Very few buyers will ask for a discount or refund on the shipment of multiple items when you offer free shipping. So it is most likely nothing you really need to concern yourself with.
The only method I know to be able to send an invoice is Paypal but doesn't that violate eBay policy by taking the transaction off eBay?
Sending an invoice through PP is NOT the same thing as taking a transaction off Ebay unless you are sending the invoice for something other than an Ebay purchase to an Ebay buyer. There are times when sending a PP invoice can be very handy on an Ebay purchase. But for what you are looking for, I think you are worrying about nothing. I've had free shipping on the vast majority of my listings for years. And I don't even get a request for discount for shipping once a year. It almost never happens.
I did have an eBay rep actually tell me to send the invoice via Paypal however. I understand I can just switch the listings all back to include a shipping charge, but I am not a large seller and I could really use the 10% discount on the total rather than just my item price. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
A better grasp of the rules would help you a great deal. You are trying to make your listings conform to something you don't need to conform to in order to get the TRS+ benefit.
Obviously you need to have a selling status of TRS first. That is the first thing you need to accomplish. Once you have that, then every listing you have that offers 0-1 day handling time and Free Returns will qualify for TRS+. All your listings don't have to qualify, you can have 1 qualify or all qualify, or any number in between. TRS+ is by listing.
With that said, if you are going to be so heavily dependent on the TRS discount, you have some bigger concerns you should look at. The discount is just not that big of a deal anymore. For every $100 worth of DOMESTIC sales, you will save you about $1. That isn't a bunch of money and NO SELLER should be dependent upon the TRS discount to be a profitable business.
