Combining Sales - How Ebay is ripping off Sellers!!

[escape_reality]

As a book seller, obviously bulk purchases are a must, with over 300 items available in store. Imagine my suprise when contacted by a buyer with the following:

"I have bought a number of books from you, I attempted to ask you for a Combined Invoice postage cost and it came up with a Red notice saying you don't offer postage discounts (even though you said you did in the listing), can you please confirm final postage cost for me."

I was fortunate that the buyer contacted me by email, as we are all aware, with the postage cost now included in the Ebay percentage taken this makes a huge difference, the total on the invoice they supplied the buyer (since I don't combine postage, yeh right!!!) was nearly $80, the actual postage cost was $15. What does any honest seller do, naturally we refund the overpayment, but Ebay and Paypal have already taken their percentage from the incorrect and highly overpriced total, do they refund us, well we all know the answer to that question!! Of course they don't.

Time for everyone to get family, friends etc to check this for you. Can you imagine the amount of money they are making out of us all by this little introduction into their system.

I'm in the process of trying to get some answers from Ebay, should be interesting.

[curraone]

Sometimes the combined postage option becomes unchecked in your site preferences - worth checking

[twyngwyn]

I always ring Ebay & have them refund fees on the the WRONG postage cost....it is possible....but time consuming

[lyndal1838]

This has been happening for the last few years, particularly if the buyer has used the Cart.

It is a glitch that ebay has been told about and often it is because of the way the seller has listed the items.

The easiest thing to do is what your buyer did....just contact the seller and get them to do it manually.

If you do a refund for overpaid postage the paypal fees are refunded on that portion of the payment.

[lotsamagsnbags]

curraone thats really interesting to hear that the combined postage option can become unchecked! - would explain a lot!

surely if I were the buyer you'd message the seller if there were probs combining..........but then again if its all too hard I guess they wouldn't buy.

so if I recheck this combined postage box - does this just mean buyers can ask me for combined postage?  what I wouldn't want to happen is that buyers think they can combine postage Not based on weight...as in they buy three items and can edit their own invoice to send all for the cheapest price... which is not the way I combine post - I do it by weight charges and don't want to end up paying for buyers post as a result...  can anyone advis eplease?

[whiznumber6]

In my listings, I specify that I combine postage, and request that buyers wait for me to send a postage-combined invoice before paying.

They almost never do, and I spend an inordinate amount of time refunding excess postage charges...

In fairness to them, PayPal at least refunds their percentage of the fee.

[curraone]

---

@lotsamagsnbags wrote:

curraone thats really interesting to hear that the combined postage option can become unchecked! - would explain a lot!

surely if I were the buyer you'd message the seller if there were probs combining..........but then again if its all too hard I guess they wouldn't buy.

so if I recheck this combined postage box - does this just mean buyers can ask me for combined postage?  what I wouldn't want to happen is that buyers think they can combine postage Not based on weight...as in they buy three items and can edit their own invoice to send all for the cheapest price... which is not the way I combine post - I do it by weight charges and don't want to end up paying for buyers post as a result...  can anyone advis eplease?

---

No, it is okay - it just means that you will combine postage if they ask for it.  

The general consensus is to it is best to steer your buyers away from the cart - apparently it has problems.

A general note in your listing saying that you combine postage and ask buyers to wait for invoice, seems to work best.   But you have to have that combined postage option ticked in your site preferences, otherwise buyers get that silly message

[lotsamagsnbags]

I had that note in my listing when a buyer paid for and purchased separately 2 items, but perhaps they got that silly message, so thanks to your helpful message, hoping they won't in future.  excellent.

[lyndal1838]

The issue is alive and well and causing problems.

I bought a number of $2 last night...I put them in the Cart and when I had finished shopping I went to ask the seller for a total price as she definitely stated that she combined postage for multiple items.

I had the message that the seller does not allow combined postage.  I then "bought" each item separately and when they were all in my Purchases I had the option to ask for a Total cost again.  This time the message did go through and I am waiting for the seller to reply.