Inconsistent shipping rates.

[longbox]

I purchased two items from a seller. The first said combined shipping was $5.50 USD which I did not notice as I was planning to buy just one item. The second item said that combined shipping is $6.50 CDN which is less than $5.50 USD. When I received the invoice I was charged the higher shipping rate. Seller won't adjust invoice, with some weird justification that one item was on ebay.com and one was on ebay.ca. What should I do? It's only a dollar and some change difference but it's the principle of it.

[wastingtime101]

You should pay it.

Any time a discount is offered whether it’s on shipping or item quantity, you’ll always pay the higher price. What I mean is buy 1 get one half off: if both items are different prices then the lowest priced item is the one that will get marked down half off. Combined shipping when you buy more than one is the same concept - if both items offer different combined shipping rates it’s the higher rate of the two that will apply if both items are eligible when purchased together.

The seller is correct about one listing on .ca and one on .com - you can tell because one was in USD and one was in CDN. 

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

You should pay it.

Any time a discount is offered whether it’s on shipping or item quantity, you’ll always pay the higher price. What I mean is buy 1 get one half off: if both items are different prices then the lowest priced item is the one that will get marked down half off. Combined shipping when you buy more than one is the same concept - if both items offer different combined shipping rates it’s the higher rate of the two that will apply if both items are eligible when purchased together.

The seller is correct about one listing on .ca and one on .com - you can tell because one was in USD and one was in CDN. 

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This.  Exactly.  

[longbox]

Seems like a good way to rip people off. You could list say 5 items which say combined shipping on my items is $5.00. Now you list another item, identical to the first five, which says combined shipping is $100.00. What you're saying is because the $100.00 is greater you would need to pay that amount even on the listings which said $5.00 combined shipping?

[7606dennis]

I'm afraid I'm missing something.  Are you looking at listings on both the Canadian site and the US site?  However, if you are signed in to your account and looking at items on the .com site, I would think that you would see the price of things converted to Canadian money with the US currency equivalent in parenthesis. 

Of course, I suppose the issue of conversion rate has caused some sellers to abandon selling internationally or doing so only through the GSP program. 

[longbox]

I don't use the US site - I use ebay.ca exclusively. Now when I search for the item in question, comic books in this case, all of the users auctions come up whether they are originally listed on ebay.ca or ebay.com. The shipping amount shown is in the proper currency but what I am asking about is someone offering combined shipping in their description.  So the whole matter of what currency or which site I am using is not really the issue. The issue is that the seller is offering different combined shipping rates on different listings in their description. 

If you read the ebay guidelines it explicitly states that you cannot provide unclear or misleading shipping charges "Including contradictory or confusing shipping terms in your listing". This is exactly what the seller has done. They have advertised one rate on one listing and another rate on a different listing.

[7606dennis]

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@longbox wrote:

I don't use the US site - I use ebay.ca exclusively. Now when I search for the item in question, comic books in this case, all of the users auctions come up whether they are originally listed on ebay.ca or ebay.com. The shipping amount shown is in the proper currency but what I am asking about is someone offering combined shipping in their description.  So the whole matter of what currency or which site I am using is not really the issue. The issue is that the seller is offering different combined shipping rates on different listings in their description. 

If you read the ebay guidelines it explicitly states that you cannot provide unclear or misleading shipping charges "Including contradictory or confusing shipping terms in your listing". This is exactly what the seller has done. They have advertised one rate on one listing and another rate on a different listing.

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I suppose that the seller could have initially set up their combined shipping rules and changed them and the one listing was posted to the site before the change.  I'm not sure if the change would automatically apply to the older listing.  Or if he would have to go in and change it on all the previous listings.  

[wastingtime101]

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@longbox wrote:

So the whole matter of what currency or which site I am using is not really the issue. The issue is that the seller is offering different combined shipping rates on different listings in their description. 

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The currency is a factor in this because the seller might be subject to higher fees with one currency over another, therefore resulting in higher prices and shipping on those items.

Different combined shipping rates on different listings is standard practice. I have many different combined shipping rates offered depending on the items.

Some have to go priority when combined while others can stay first class. Some can combine into flat rate envelopes and others will be determined by weight. It's not at all uncommon to offer different combined rates on different items.

The bottom line is the rate shown for one particular listing applies to that listing. When you buy multiple items from different listings that show different combined rates, the seller does not even need to offer a combined rate - but if they do then it will be the higher rate for reasons mentioned above. That's just how it works. It's not about ripping somebody off - there are different factors at play involving fees, weight, etc.