Issue to address re eBay's notifications to ship & definition of what an "order" is.

[apple-2-online-store]

There is a real issue with eBay's "sold - ready to ship" notifications.  Here's an example to explain the issue:

We have an item listed for $9.99 + $6.35 S&H and a second item listed for $13.00 + $6.85 S&H.  Both items are purchased by a single customer.  The issue is, eBay sends a notification of "ready to ship" for each individual item so we got two separate notifications of sales, one for each item.  Yet, the notification for the first item says that item sold for $22.99 + $13.20 S&H, and then the notification for the 2nd item says that item sold for $22.99 + $13.20 S&H.  Neither are true.  Those $22.99 + $13.20 S&H numbers are a combination of the two items.  This is the first part of the problem.

The second part of the problem is that, between the time eBay's notification for the first item came in to our inbox and the time the notification for the second item was received, we received two email notifications from sales in our webstore.  We handle orders in the order in which they are received.  So the first eBay item gets processed, we then process two orders from our webstore, and then we process the second eBay order.  Thus the eBay customer gets two separate packages from us.  If, on the other hand, eBay would send a single notification that two items were in a single order from that one customer, they would get one package from us with both items.  This is the second part of the problem.

Thus the issue is this: What is "an order"?  In the above example, if the two items are considered as one order then eBay should be sending out ONLY one email with both items listed and showing the combined price and S&H.  If, on the other hand, they are 2 separate orders, then the email notifications for each order need to reflect the correct price and S&H, not the combined prices.

Before anyone suggests we log into eBay and check each order notification we get, let me say that we have neither the time nor desire to log into eBay and check each and every order we get to see if they are multiple item orders.  eBay takes a hefty fee for their service so we rely on eBay to tell us (via their email notifications) what an order consists of and to whom we are to ship, period.    As long as eBay's notifications treat each item as an individual order, we will continue to process them as such.  Unfortunately customers loose out because there is no combined S&H discount.

[katzrul15]

@apple-2-online-store 

Do you not offer pre-determined combined shipping when your customers place their items in their carts?  I would think that would resolve this issue - our customers do not have to wait for us to combine or offer a shipping discount - once in the cart, the shipping discount is automatically calculated and they pay - when that happens, I get (1) order with multiple items.

Not certain this is an e-Bay problem.  

[wastingtime101]

• Understand that the $ total in the e-mail is for the order, so if it is much higher than the item in the e-mail that means there is likely more than one item in the order. That's your cue to check your eBay orders page.
• Instead of relying on e-mails (and trust me when I say that eBay e-mails for sale alerts do not always make it through so you can miss stuff if you rely on e-mails), go to the eBay orders page and print a pick list. This will generate one page of all orders waiting to be shipped.
• Since you do not use combined shipping rules, that means the buyer is paying for separate shipping, so you can simply continue to send separate packages without a financial loss.

eBay e-mail alerts are not set up based on order. They're set up based on item number. Only the dollar amount will give an indication if there are multiple items in the order. Even that isn't always a solid indicator because many buyers use buy-it-now and pay for each item separately instead of in one single order, yet those sales can be combined into one package.

Ultimately it's up to you how you want to handle your business, but eBay isn't likely to change their ways any time soon so you'll have to work around that.