Are all Ebay Shoppers Stupid??
 

Is it me or is it impossible to sell multiple items to one buyer without them screwing up waiting for an invoice to combine shipping?

The last 4 buyers I have had (not including ones that are members here and who communicate well ahead of time) have paid for multiple cards without waiting for a combined shipping invoice, even when I have replied to messages from them with DO NOT PAY specifically stated.

Tonight, I messaged a guy and told him to buy two cards, DO NOT PAY and I would get an alert and send him an invoice. So, he buys two cards and pays for one immediately, then messages me asking me to erase the shipping off the other.

The previous customer bought 9 cards and paid $31.50 in shipping on cards that cost roughly $15. Again, he had messaged me and I had given him specific instructions.

Just frustrated.

To avoid all of the frustration, can't you automate your checkout settings so that on multiple single card purchases the ebay checkout system will automatically cap the s/h on your buyer's purchases?

The answer to your question is no.

From a buyer's perspective, sellers are the exact same way. Tonight I bought two graded cards from the same seller. Shipping is $3.95 per card, but the listing says the shipping is capped at $4.95 max. So, I go to pay for the two cards, but I notice the shipping shows $7.90 ($3.95 X 2). So, I tried to commit to the purchase and clicked the "Request total from seller" link, but I got a message from eBay saying the seller doesn't combine shipping. Huh? So if the seller doesn't combine shipping, how do I take advantage of the shipping discount?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1974-TOPPS-...72.m2749.l2649

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1974-TOPPS-...72.m2749.l2649

With my handset I cannot commit to buy without it making me pay. Laptop works as it should and I can wait for invoice.

David, the only thing I can think of is there is a listing setting that says "require immediate payment on Buy It Now Purchases" or something to that effect. If they have that checked (and they may not know they do) that may be why you get that message. I went through and made sure mine did not have that option checked.

In that situation, I would wait and just message the seller. When someone buys a card, I immediately get a notification that reads "Sold - Awaiting Payment" I typically message the buyer to ask if they are buying multiple cards at that point and never wait for them to ask for an invoice. Once I know they are done, I fix the invoice and get it to them right away.

The guy tonight said he tried to request an invoice and accidentally paid. We got things straightened out tonight, but this is the 4th or 5th multiple card buyer in a row that has done this, a couple in much bigger sums. Sorry for venting my frustration!

It is not just eBay. I purchased 2 items from a seller on here from 2 different listings. They charged me the shipping from both listings even thought they sent the items to me in the same package. Price was still cheap enough I just paid it.

With so many changes over the years with Ebay, many buyers don't realize that when they want to buy more than one item from the same seller but when you click Buy It Now on the first item, it sends you straight to Paypal. To avoid this, don't click Buy It Now but click Add To Cart. Do the same with the other items from the same seller. Once done, go to your shopping cart and request total from seller. At this point, you commit to purchasing the items and they get locked in as you being the buyer. Now just wait for an invoice from the seller with combined shipping and everyone is happy. Problem is, when Ebay made the payment due immediately change, they never explained in detail how to avoid that and request an invoice from the seller.

Attention eBay Shoppers - There is a Blue Light Special in aisle 3

In my situation above, that's exactly how I did it. That's how I always do it when I'm looking at multiple items from the same seller. So, I decided on the two cards above, went to my cart to checkout, clicked the "Pay only this seller" option (I had other items in my cart from other sellers) and that's when it tried to charge me twice for shipping - it didn't apply the shipping discount. So, I backed up, and clicked the "Request total from seller" option knowing I would commit to the purchase and just wait for the invoice. Instead, I got an immediate message from eBay saying the seller doesn't combine shipping. Sure, at that point I could have messaged the seller and waited for them to correct it on their end, but I would have risked losing the cards to another buyer.

So, what you described is the way it's supposed to work, but my guess is that the seller didn't have their shipping discounts set up properly.

It's just part of doing business on eBay. As a seller, I go thru this everyday. Once a buyer pays for his cards separately, it requires several steps to combine multiple orders into one.

If this happens, package up all the cards in 1 package and create the shipping label based on that weight. Once the shipping label is created, a tracking # will be created for one of the orders. Take that tracking # and go into your eBay orders, and update the tracking # of the other items in that order. There is a video on YouTube out there explaining this whole process. It's a pain in the neck but it takes care of the issue.

I politely remind repeat offenders and hope they do it right the next time.

I haven't sold anything on ebay in over ten years and I've only
sold two items since I've had an account so I don't really know
anything about the selling end but combined shipping can be
confusing for the buyers.

I always like to pay for anything I purchase immediately but in the
past when I've purchased multiple items from a seller and they say
they combine shipping I've sent a request total message (for the ones
that don't say wait for an invoice) and not heard back from them for days
and on more than one occasion I've just said the heck with it and paid
the extra shipping. The last time I did that when I went to pay it
automatically combined the shipping but you don't know that until
you go to pay.

I've had that come up one or two times since and it did combine
shipping automatically so I thought it was done through ebay.

So it's not always stupid buyers it can be the way ebay or the seller
has their account set up that's confusing.

That can work if the buyer buys multiple cards then pays.
Many times I've had buyers buy 1 card at a time & pay for it, then buy another & pay for it and so on.
I bundle them up and ship them together.
I lose a little bit of money for each Paypal transaction, but I'm happy for the multiple sales.

As a buyer only I have just as many complaints to sellers for shipping issues. Some sellers are obviously trying to increase their margins with shipping fees. This is one of the reasons I give so many props to Greg Morris. It's $3 no matter how many single cards (I think eBay caps invoices at 40) but it keeps me bidding on more items and I am sure he makes up the shipping from people like me bidding on things we otherwise might skip and increasing the prices whether I win or I don't. There is one seller in particular whose stuff I really like, but his shipping policies are absurd. Even when you buy a few items you are waiting to see what he will come up with for a combined price. At the end of the day its definitely cost this seller business from me. He has great feedback but about a dozen neutrals on these shipping issues. He is pretty upfront about it so if you don't like it move on. But my point is that he definitely could do a lot more business and probably make more money if he had more reasonable shipping policies.

But yes from the OP's original point I always wait for an invoice when combining items. If its been 24 hours than I remind the seller. If there is an eBay promotion or bucks promotion involved I will email the seller a few times to try to expedite the process so I can take advantage of the offers.

As a mainly seller, it is VERY frustrating. I always like to combine s/h. But I do realize many buyers just pay for separate items, for reasons stated above. I then have to refund the extra s/h. That's basically the only way I can figure out making things right.

I'm usually not a negative person, but I think ebay does this on purpose. Once they made the decision to take a small percentage of s/h fees, they make it hard to combine s/h. As they will make a bit more from individual purchases.

It actually has gotten so frustrating to me, now I do Free S/H on all my listings. So now, a buyer can buy as many cards, and I don't have to worry about it any more.

Not fun, Scott :(

If you're responding to the question about automating combined shipping, I don't think this is true. I've run the gamut of shipping experiences as a buyer and I know there are some sellers who have combined shipping automated and it works fine.

I know other times, when I've tried it, it's impossible to commit to buying without paying for it and thus pay full shipping for each one.

I offer free shipping when I sell stuff...cuts down on the headaches.

Well that is stupid. Unless due to the weight there was extra shipping charges (and not a buck more due to another card) then I think that is pathetic. Who was the seller? Another seller just got booted for poor antics in the T206 section here (link below). "Crap" on our BST will not be put up with for long. Had your seller not combined shipping, and I was the buyer, I might have told him to take a hike with his cards...

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=252683

.

My phone ebay app does the exact same thing to me. So maybe that is the issue?

I bought a few cards a couple weeks ago and requested an invoice. The seller contacted me and said I am the one of the few people that request a combined shipping invoice. He said he issues so many refunds on shipping that it's crazy. It just makes no sense to me.

In my case I believe it was an honest mistake. I bought from the seller before this happened and have since.

The seller lists a lot of stuff on here. In one listing the items had prices including shipping. The other listing had items priced before shipping. My guess is he just looked at the prices added them together then added shipping. Like they say sometimes BLEEP happens.

Both items had great prices so I just paid what he asked and I am sure we are both happy.:)

The ultimate answer from both a buyer and a seller standpoint is that Ebay's Shopping Cart software is not intuitive, has a million glitches (just like the rest of Ebay), and can appear different depending on what browser you are using, what app you are using, what listing software you are using, etc., etc., etc..

Instead of simplifying what works, Ebay just pumps out 8 more pages of rules to complicate things and squeeze us just a little bit more, two or three times a year.

Instead of streamlining, Ebay's engineers just build on top of what's already there, so there's more chances of things glitching and not as much of a chance to un-knot the clumsy power cord they've created.

Somebody was on the right track. Ebay doesn't care. As a matter of fact, they prefer it that way. Every time a seller has to refund shipping costs to a buyer because of a shopping cart issue, or because they didn't get a chance to combine before payment was made, Ebay keeps their chunk of the Shipping fee. You get the Paypal portion back, but unless you want to waste an hour or more of your life on the phone with Ebay to correct the situation, you're never going to see that 10% cut back.

Totally agree, on point 100%

Ebay also mysteriously changes the defaults on sellers shipping settings on the regular, and they seller never knows whats going on until they start getting complaints and have to go uncheck settings they never set to begin with.

Just trying to find where these settings are, takes up an ungodly amount of your time.

:mad:

I must have mine set up pretty well because I haven't had these issues. The combined shipping works automatically. The only time it doesn't is when I have a buyer who wants more than one item and they close days apart. Those buyers sometimes jump the gun and pay for the closed items before they're done. If that happens and I can combine in one package I will and then will refund the extra cost.

Maybe the issue is with flat rate shipping with no automatic provision for additional items? I add an incremental cost for additional cards and it seems to work perfectly.

how to get a refund on shipping fees through eBay
 

You can refund a buyer for combining shipping through Paypal, but in order to get a refund for the fees eBay charges on shipping you have to call them up on the phone and request the refund.

I just had a buyer purchase 14 items from me and he paid immediately. I refunded him $34.00 in shipping fees to combine the order into one package through Paypal.

I then called eBay (waited in line for 10 minutes) and they refunded me $3.80. I asked if there was any other way to receive a refund and they said no, you have to call. I imagine most sellers don't bother and eBay pockets the loose change.

Hope this information helps.

Joe

That is very disturbing. I never realized that eBay was keeping the loose change. I refund shipping costs to buyers several times a week whenever they pay for each item separately. Multiply that by all the other sellers who were not aware of that. eBay owes us some serious cash.

I can't speak for all eBay buyers, but I know I am.

I have called ebay concerning refunds for FVFs on s/h and had the same results as Joe on larger amounts I have refunded back to a single buyer. However, with the daily situation of a buyer paying separately for two cards, I ship together and refund back the extra s/h less the second PP transaction fee (30 cents) and the ebay FVFs on the extra s/h paid (30 cents). While I do not like having to pass costs onto buyers, I am not going to spend my time calling ebay daily for this small amount of money. But, if I refund back the extra 60 cents each time, by the end of the year, I would have refunded back several hundred dollars of extra fees I was not the cause of.

The loose change does add up.

No
 

No, of course all ebay shoppers are not stupid. Some are simply anxious to complete the sale and don’t read all the information. That’s it, their human.

I like this idea.

I do not sell on eBay but there has to be a way for you through settings to automatically combine shipping. I know this because I only (with a few exceptions) buy from sellers who set theirs up that way. If I add multiple cards to my cart and the shipping doesn't automatically combine, I just remove from my cart and move on. Now, if you do figure out how to set that up and you have buyers who do not use the cart and buy multiple cards one at a time paying shipping on each card, then the answer to your question is Yes they are stupid.

What makes you think he's their human? He could belong to anyone, or no one at all.

Me too. Just let me know if you don’t want my stupid money

Even on auction style items you can do it this way. I won 9 items from the same seller tonight. Each time it recalculates to get to $3. If I bid with him tomorrow the next $3 cycle starts but once daily he invoices me back to $3. Not sure how difficult this is but it's perfect. I can pay immediately and it's already combined. Everyone wins.

I've had a lot of good experiences with selling on Ebay. It has just been frustrating lately since I listed a lot of low dollar cards with the intention of getting rid of inventory and trying to invite people to buy multiple cards at once. Many are just fine. I've just had my share of buyers lately who despite messaging and asking for instructions, fail to read said instructions and make things harder. I tried to set up a rule adding $.10 per card for extra cards to try and take some of the issues away, but it is not getting executed properly via Ebay checkout, so I am not sure what I did wrong.

I guess I shouldn't complain. Several of the buyers that overpaid shipping, offered to make up the difference by taking extra cards.

But the easiest recommendation I have is, buy the cards but don't pay. I don't know how it works on mobile, but on the full site you should be able to do it easily. Simply send the seller a message once you are done. The seller will already have notifications on each card saying "Sold - Awaiting Payment". The Seller can then combine and send an invoice without you ever having to use the ebay function of requesting one.

//end rant in a weak moment on a bad day!

Exact thing happened to me last week so I just paid the double shipping and emailed the seller and she refunded me the money. Rick