International new program combined shipping

[thesewingdoll]

Out of Country Buyer commits to buy multiple under 10.00 items, E-mails me to request a combined invoice. Customer cannot request it on her end via cart, I cannot send one? Customer calls Ebay...Ebay tells her she most certainly can get a combined invoice from me. Customer sends screen shots of her conversation with Ebay saying exactly that. I STILL can not send a combined invoice and get the message that Ebay handles the invoices on International sales. Customer can't make the purchase, Gets lied to by a customer rep, Customer wants to cancel. Seller is left holding the bag to Clean up the mess. Curious to know exactly WHO this is helping here??? I have not cancelled the transactions. 

[stainlessenginecovers]

Are you in EIS (Ebay International Shipping vs. you paying for/buying international labels?)

Most of your items only ship to Canada; a couple ship to Canada and Greenland?? 

All other locations are 'excluded'.

so, if you want to do an invoice, you CANNOT be in EIS (they only allow 1 item per purchase) and 2nd; if you want to allow EIS to ship worldwide, you need to 'change' your 'excluded' areas. 

[janet9988 · Accepted solution]

Program rules do not allow combined shipping.

Share this with your buyer so they will see ebay customer service lied to them.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/shipping-delivery/changing-delivery-address-method/international-pu...

https://pages.ebay.com/internationalshippingprogram/seller/terms/

[thesewingdoll]

I was in the Global program, and did exactly what my invite said to do regarding the update to listings... For the "new international program".  I do not want to sell nor ship internationally outside of Ebay's program. My problem is...It's perhaps not clear to the customer about NO COMBINED shipping options for the out of Country purchases, and the customer service person lied to the potential customer...I have the screenshots. It's a mess I think Ebay should address.

[stephenmorgan]

What you have to do is cancel the orders and then make one listing with all items and then let the buyer re-purchase.  Just make sure you have the shipping specifications set properly in your listing.  Communicate with the buyer and make sure they will agree to this.  I don't think your buyer paid yet so it should not be a big problem.

[thesewingdoll]

Yeah, that's nice? But the customer has already moved on because they did not appreciate their time being wasted...lol. Imagine that? They also did not appreciate the lack of knowledge from the person at Ebay they spoke to either. Sellers should not have to make "special listings" Inventory count is a issue.  And time if the buyer does not follow through. Just my opinion. Make No combined shipping Crystal clear to International buyers or add the option and make everyone's experience BETTER. 

[thesewingdoll]

I added that info to the bottom of all my listings. Thank you.

[stainlessenginecovers]

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@thesewingdoll wrote:

I was in the Global program, and did exactly what my invite said to do regarding the update to listings... For the "new international program".  I do not want to sell nor ship internationally outside of Ebay's program. My problem is...It's perhaps not clear to the customer about NO COMBINED shipping options for the out of Country purchases, and the customer service person lied to the potential customer...I have the screenshots. It's a mess I think Ebay should address.

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@thesewingdoll 

Ok; well whatever you did, it did NOT work. ALL YOUR LISTINGS only show Canada as an option. If you WANT to be in EIS, you have to 'REMOVE' ALL those excluded countries. 

You can do this by bulk editing. 

[ms.rodriguez*]

Customer service does not know what they are saying more than half of the time.  You can't combine sales if you are in the international program BUT you can cancel ALL of those deals and then quickly rewrite the ad for that customer.  Before you do that, explain to the buyer what you will do.  Do the math on the total of ALL of the items that the buyer wants.   Then email the buyer, tell them that you will cancel ALL of the purchases. Tell them that at a certain time, you will start a private listing just for them.  Tell them that it will start at X (you determine that by asking the buyer what time is convenient for them to buy the item).  Explain to them that you will start the ad at a very high price to ward off other buyers.  They are to either make an offer at the total price of the items that they want and you will accept it.   Make sure you write PRIVATE Auction  in the title and the first line of the description should say this "  This is a private auction for a certain buyer in the country of X.    Only that person can bid. "   Then write a quick description of the items or you can use the item #s of all of the items that the person wanted.  make the price high.    Have the buyer make you an offer of the total of the items that they want.  Or you set the best offer price at that total but make the price visible to every one at least 2 hundred dollars higher to keep others away.  Make sure that you tell the buyer the combined shipping price too before you do all of this.  Some of them will agree to do it and some will be scared. Hopefully your buyer is fluent in English and will understand. 

Personally, I have done this 3 times but it was on buy it nows that required immediate payment and all buyers were in the USA and were fluent in English. It worked for me.  Goodluck.  (For those new to ebay or did not know, you can't combine shipping if you use immediate required payment.)

[pjcdn2005]

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@thesewingdoll wrote:

I added that info to the bottom of all my listings. Thank you.

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 There are a few issues here.  Part of the statement you added says:

"Keep in mind that you currently won't be able to combine shipping if you purchase multiple items from sellers in this program."

 Combined shipping is NEVER possible when purchasing from multiple sellers  domestic or international so I'm not sure why that statement is there.  Plus, the problem your buyer was having was purchasing multiple items from ONE seller.   But before you change anything...note what @stainlessenginecovers   You are NOT in the ebay international shipping program as you have almost countries on your excluded list.  You need to fix that first. 

Once you get EIS set up properly, it would be a good idea to go through your listings. Right now you have some with information about global shipping and some with info about ebay international shipping, its confusing and messy.  Also, rather than explain that they can't combine, perhaps explain that they can contact you to make a single listing when they shipping is international through EIS.

[ikonicstudios]

Customer service never knows what they are taking out. Most times, their own agents at eBay don't even know their own policies or procedures on new programs that THEIR company puts in place. We've ran into this issue with this crappy new ebay International Shipping program. I have one customer who placed ONE single order with 13 items and was then charged 13.86 for each of the 13 items individually for a total of  180.18 and shipping to Mexico. When I calculated the cost of al items in one order and weight, the cost is actually 28.00. However, eBay now charged them a total of 180.18 in just shipping costs. I've opted out and now having issue with that. Now I just make sure and advise the customers to call and yell at eBay!!!

[garygsguitars]

Can't you just give the customer a quote, then have them pay whatever the total is and then refund them the difference? Seems easier.

[jkd98]

I just had my first order for multiple items to be shipped internationally and discovered I cannot combine the items into one shipment and offer a combined shipping rate. Not happy with that and I am not going to make my customer pay to ship each item individually. I am sure the sales will be cancelled if I do that. Before I checked the community page here, my thought was to cancel his 4 orders and combine the 4 items into a single new listing so that there will only be one order. That seems to be exactly what you have suggested. I hope eBay can find a way to fix this combined international shipping problem. Otherwise, the solution you have outlined appears to be the only way to deal with this situation. Thanks. 

[thebarbieguy]

The fact that they cannot combine shipping is ridiculous! If a customer buys 10 items they are charged 10 shipping fees! Who wants to pay that?

[stuffygrotto]

FYI @thesewingdoll - Your listing # 394791246244 screenshot: