Unable to COMBINE SHIPPING when my rules state to ADD THE WEIGHTS

[disneyshopper]

I had two items shipping to the same buyer.  She paid separately.  I use ebay's bulk printing, and they have an option to Combine Shipping in the drop-down.  When I selected it, ebay tells me the items cannot be combined.

Each item weighs 8 ounces packaged up.  Ahh...8 + 8 = 16 ounces.  Too heavy for first class package, so I change each weight to 6 ounces, so now the combined weigh is 12 ounces.  Still no go.

I end up printing 2 labels.  Any thoughts as to why this didn't work to combine into one package weighing 12 ounces?

[babclassics]

When buyers pay separately the combined shipping has to be handled manually.  You only need to print one label with the combined weight.  Then go to the other order and copy paste the same tracking number from the first label.   Be sure to pick the correct carrier also when adding the tracking number manually. Would be nice if one could combine but that seems to work only when all items are purchased in cart at one time now-a days. 

[disneyshopper]

Thanks for the reply.

My experience has been that once a tracking number has been uploaded to ebay, you cannot upload that same tracking number to another item, and thus the second item does not get a tracking number updated and you get a ding for no tracking uploaded.

[babclassics]

hmmm. Yes that has happened to me as well but only when the items were not purchased with the same eBay user-id.  I had a husband and wife both purchase items to be delivered to the same address but they used 2 different eBay accounts to make the purchase.  It would not let me re-use the tracking number (said it was already used).  But within the last month or so the system has let me use the same number on 2 orders to same user id & address.  That was with the old label flow if that could make a difference?  But things change all the time, eh?  I hope we all don't start getting that problem going forward... will watch for it.

---

@disneyshopper wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

My experience has been that once a tracking number has been uploaded to ebay, you cannot upload that same tracking number to another item, and thus the second item does not get a tracking number updated and you get a ding for no tracking uploaded.

---

[dtexley3]

As long as the userid is the same between the two orders the system has always allowed the same tracking number on multiple orders.  I've been doing that for years now. 

If the buyer is purchasing under guest ids then you can't do that.  In that case they get no combined shipping discount from me because I have to generate multiple labels. hehehe.