topic Re: combined postage in Buying

combined postage

lindsey2573 — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 06:14:23 GMT

Why oh why do sellers have to manually alter their settings to allow combined postage? So many times I have gone to request a total only to be told ''The seller does not offer combined postage discounts.The seller has disallowed combined payments and postage discounts. Please proceed to checkout to complete your purchase''.

They are usually people who are fairly new to selling & don't realise this. Nobody in their right mind would 'disallow' combined postage so why is automatically set to this? It is not an easy task to figure out how to change your settings either.

Rant over 😞

Re: combined postage

davewil1964 — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 06:25:36 GMT

There could be several reasons -

The seller has automatic payment enabled.

The seller doesn't want to combine postage.

The buyer is using the app. The app doesn't allow combined postage.

Most likely, eBay has set listings so that combining is impossible. This seems to have happened to me. I do not have auto payment enabled, and am quite happy to do the best deal possible on postage, but eBay don't give the buyers the option of asking for it. If buyers contact me, I do a listing for what they want, with the appropriate postage, and they purchase that.

Re: combined postage

lindsey2573 — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 06:35:38 GMT

Thanks Davewil, one seller (of 2 I have encountered with this today) has given me a combined quote but can't figure how to send me an invoice. I have sent him links to the instructions but have not heard back.

I did speak to eBay about this last year & they said it's not automatically no combined postage because that would be silly! I gave up.

Here's the link if anyone is curious but I'm sure you are all very experienced & have already done this. 🙂

https://www.ebay.com.au/help/selling/shipping-items/shipping-rates/offering-combined-shipping?id=4169&st=12&pos=2&query=Offering%20combined%20postage&intent=combine%20postage

Re: combined postage

twyngwyn — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 07:25:25 GMT

some buyers also have 'automatic payment' set up, without realising that by doing that they have to 'pay as they go'

Re: combined postage

zanadoo_56 — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 11:44:32 GMT

Very frustrating for sure.

This bit of the message cracks me up: Please proceed to checkout to complete your purchase.

I don't know about other buyers but if there's no combined postage I delete everything in the cart and proceed to a new seller.

Re: combined postage

lynne8221 — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:41:44 GMT

I am a seller & have everything in place for combined postage, but there are various reasons why buyers can't always get a combined postage invoice - they are using their mobile phones is one.

Most of my buyers just contact me & I sort the issue - usually by putting all thier items in the one listing with correct postage. They buy & only have to make the one payment. So if it's something you really want just do this - 9 times out of 10 it's not the sellers fault.

Re: combined postage

4channel — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 04:24:21 GMT

Yes, buyers should contact sellers first. mny sellers are happy to sort combined postage if you ask them first.

Re: combined postage

zanadoo_56 — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 05:28:09 GMT

@lynne8221 wrote:
I am a seller & have everything in place for combined postage, but there are various reasons why buyers can't always get a combined postage invoice - they are using their mobile phones is one.

Most of my buyers just contact me & I sort the issue - usually by putting all thier items in the one listing with correct postage. They buy & only have to make the one payment. So if it's something you really want just do this - 9 times out of 10 it's not the sellers fault.

I don't have a mobile phone. I use a computer. If I want something bad enough I will contact the seller, but I also read all the notes on the listings (brief as they seem to be getting these days) and I read the feedback and take note of the stars. If postage is an issue I think about it first.

My experience with no combined postage lately has been sellers who don't know how to change things. I'm a buyer, never a seller and I can't help them fix this issue. So it has got to the stage where sometimes I don't feel inclined to go through the messages merry-go-round unless either the item can't be found elsewhere or the seller actually says under Postage (send message to seller) that they will combine postage. I figure if they say so, they'll know what to do.

Frankly I already have enough angst trying to work out what each seller means by 'Standard Postage (Standard Delivery). Sadly that alone is interpreted in wildly different ways.

Re: combined postage

*tippy*toes* — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 11:44:39 GMT

As a seller, I DO NOT have immediate payment required ticked. My settings are set where I accept combined postage. Yet, no matter what buyers do, they are forced into immediate payment for BIN items. When buyers have contacted me, I have mentioned the steps they might need to take in their settings, but they still can't bypass immediate payment.

So, I do what Dave does. If they contact me prior to buying, I get them to tell me which items they want, and I'll edit a listing to include all the items.

It used to be that if a buyer added items to their cart, they could request a total, but even that isn't working for me these days. It's a turn off for some buyers, and I feel I am missing out on sales because of eBay implementing this.

Re: combined postage

padi*0409 — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 16:33:36 GMT

@*tippy*toes* wrote:

................and I feel I am missing out on sales because of eBay implementing this.

Tippy, I've gone though the same thing as a buyer, eBay has made it almost impossible for sellers to make sure that combined postage is an easy thing for them to do.

I've bought from sellers and have had to wait until they can update an invoice for me, or refund postage.

Bull$hit, for a supposedly top of the range company that has IT "experts" that can only stuff things up that were not broken in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I will still use eBay, but I do use other on-line platforms simply because they are sometimes easier to work with than eBay.

Nuff said..........................

.....................paccies are very intelligent......................more so than ducks apparently................ .

Nope, nuthin' there either.

Re: combined postage

padi*0409 — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 16:56:14 GMT

@tazzie

Thanks for the kudo, but why are sh!t loads of your listings without pics ????

Re: combined postage

tazzieterror — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:38:37 GMT

Because I haven't finished taking photos of everything yet.

Re: combined postage

lindsey2573 — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 21:39:14 GMT

I got around one lot by selecting local pick up on one of the items. The poor seller could not figure out how to send an invoice etc.

The second one has gone & changed his settings. One item was immediate payment so I could not do buy it now, when I added it to my cart it wouldn't let me request a total. Now that he has changed his settings the request went through no problems.

I don't believe you can send an invoice either unless you change these settings.

So frustrating. And I hear you Zanadoo with the ''So it has got to the stage where sometimes I don't feel inclined to go through the messages merry-go-round unless either the item can't be found elsewhere''

Sometimes I just can't be bothered explaining it all & don't buy.

What's going to happen with all these customers in home confinemet who are ready to buy? Come on eBay, fix this idiotic system so that it is user friendly. 🙂

Re: combined postage

madebya2 — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 23:39:19 GMT

Great advice here, obviously from very experienced sellers!! I can only add from my experience, I think the 'make an offer' and 'send offer' (for sellers) are really useful here, as long as the seller can reply super quick! But just means its quite easy to not have to create a specialised invoice, just simply offer one of the items at a reduced price that makes up for the difference. Also, in the situation where a seller has free postage on all items, then I think just suggest to the seller that multiple items are being purchased and to offer a lower price to make up the difference. Just a thought!

Re: combined postage

11dustyattic — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 12:48:17 GMT

I use my phone only, desktop site, but haven't been able to send a new invoice with combined postage. I rang Ebay about it once and they finally admitted it wasn't possible. That was after wasting about half an hour of my time. I gave up after that. They seriously need to get with the times