Shipping net price items from my eBay Store

[jerryderrstamps]

Hello, I have a question regarding shipping of net price items from my eBay Store.

With my auctions I run them in batches closing two nights a week.  Each auction has its own shipping charge but I combine the shipping charges for multiple lots bought the same night.

I had a buyer get two items today...they did use 'buy it now' for each so paid double shipping AND I paid double 30c fees.  I understand they could do 'add to cart' and checkout but that would only eliminate my 30c extra fee.  I don't want to have to keep issuing shipping refunds as eBay charges me final value fees on the amount they actually pay.  (Do I get final value fee refund on a refund?  I would doubt it.  Even if I do, it's still a lot of extra work). 

The items I sell are inexpensive ($2-10 mostly) and that shipping charge is a significant 'buyer's premium' in effect. 

Is there a way for an eBay buyer to request an invoice at checkout instead of going ahead and paying for it?

[klhmdg · Accepted solution]

You will not get any fees back for a partial refund.

The buyer can request an invoice (most times) if they put it in their cart and request from there.

I think if you have BIN with immediate payment it might not always work.

You may want to put on your listings for the buyer to contact you before purchase to combine shipping

[jerryderrstamps]

I answered my own question.   Looks like you can 'go to cart' and then select Request Total, and from there request a new invoice.     I had to find someone who was selling as I am which was actually difficult. 

[jerryderrstamps]

Thanks klhmdg, I do have in my auctions for the buyer to contact me for the invoice to combine shipping but sometimes the buyer's don't read or follow.   The fixed price items are new to me so I hadn't had an instance where someone bought more than one item til yesterday.   I will put in the steps what to do. 

What I don't want to have to do is price everything higher so that I can do free shipping - which is what it seems most sellers actually do. 

[reallynicestamps]

You can set the refund wherever you like.

If the buyer paid $2 twice, you are paying a 26cfee plus an extra non-refundable 30c fee.

So if you want to refund him you would refund at most $1.44.

However, you are using some packaging material which raises your costs.

And you are likely using stamps from your stock for mailing which you purchased at a discount when you last purchased an estate, which lowers your costs.

Not to mention Cookie Jar (self) Insurance.

And the buyer was happy to pay the $4.00 shipping fee.

I've tucked a few mint never hinged stamps into the package to correct shipping charges.

[jerryderrstamps]

Thanks for your response.... since I wrote this I changed my s/h to cover the 30c fee per order and my materials costs (estimate 30c per mailing).   I do not use discount postage I use current forever commemoratives for USA mailings.  As of now I don't worry about insurance as I have had maybe 1% of items lost in terms of revenue and dollar amounts and half of those were to India, which I no longer sell to.  Just a pain to issue refunds.  Oddly I think I have only had one customer come back to thank me. 

One thing that I do now , if the buyer bought and paid in such a way that it creates multiple eBay orders that I would ship at the same time, is only refund the postage and not the 60c handling/fee charge.