topic Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP in Selling

Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

michelle40_5 — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 12:22:32 GMT

PLEASE HELP!!!

Ive been selling on here for a bit now and have always taken pride in offering true combined postage.

BUT now that ebay charges fees on the postage I have lost so many sales as my customers can not request a combined postage invoice. I have told them to add to the cart (as ebay have told me) but they still don't have the option to request a invoice.
I have double checked my listings and made sure they are not asking for instant payment.

Its really hard to ask a customer to believe I will refund the difference in postage for them.

I really hope I'm just missing something and I can offer true combined postage to my customers again.

I have spent A LOT of time on line with ebays live chat and everything they say is untrue and whatever they recommend doesn't work.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

davewil1964 — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 12:27:16 GMT

If somebody buys several items from me and pays the various separate postage, I refund the difference less eBay and (often) Paypal flagfall.

If they ask prior, I set up a separate listing for what they want, with a ridiculous BIN and Best Offer enabled. They offer the agreed price, I accept, they pay.

I don't know that I've lost sales doing that as I get no more than one query a month and seem to be refunding overpaid postage to those that don't enquire at least once a week.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

brerrabbit585 — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 23:24:51 GMT

It could be that your statement about loving to offer true combined post is putting them off. That statement could be interpreted as meaning that when they go through checkout the right postage will automatically show without them needing to ask for an invoice.

Ebay has obviously opted you into immediate payment required because when I clicked on BIN on one of your items it took me straight to checkout rather than confirming my purchase first.

I tried putting three items in the cart and up the top right it says "request total" but it's not clickable. Next to it is a small i in a circle and when I hover over it, it says "You can't request a total because the seller has already offered a discount for these items." Unfortunately the request a total button doesn't always work and the buyers get conflicting messages that just leave them confused.

Perhaps your promotional discounts are interfering with the cart but it doesn't work for a lot of sellers who don't have the discounts. I use letterpost most of the time so I've stated in my description how much postage will cost and said that I'll refund any overpaid postage. I've decided to just wear the extra fees on postage but it's much more complicated when you use parcels because you're refunding much higher postage amounts that you've already paid fees on. I think the only way is for you to offer to set up special listings if they want several items, but with what you're selling a lot of buyers won't bother to ask.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

gumleaf_goodies — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 04:51:07 GMT

I do what Dave does i.e. refund the excess postage paid minus the fees I have paid.

The only time I actually get to set up a special listing is (of course) if the buyer asks first about combined listings, and experiences trouble using the cart to request an invoice.

But something I discovered quite recently is that a BUYER can set up immediate payment on their purchases. If this is the case, then there is nothing the seller can do to delay an invoice so that combined postage can be applied.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

lyndal1838 — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 05:44:49 GMT

And something I discovered recently.....if Immediate Payment is on the listing and the Cart is used ebay tell the buyer that THEY (ebay)

will not allow combined postage no matter what the seller has in their listing.

That is really beyond the pale....first of all ebay can put best offer on listings and/or Immediate Payment with no reference to the seller and then refuse to allow combined postage whether the seller is agreeable or not.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

go-tazz — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 08:13:58 GMT

@lyndal1838 wrote:
And something I discovered recently.....if Immediate Payment is on the listing and the Cart is used ebay tell the buyer that THEY (ebay)
will not allow combined postage no matter what the seller has in their listing.

That is really beyond the pale....first of all ebay can put best offer on listings and/or Immediate Payment with no reference to the seller and then refuse to allow combined postage whether the seller is agreeable or not.

That's eBay for you,(it's all about charging the maximum amount of money and ethics doesn't mean anything

to them).

The best offer is so that the items sell regardless,(so they don't care how much the seller loses as long as

eBay gets the money),

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

respect.our.planet — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 08:27:02 GMT

With these tricks eBay will also lose money. Some time ago somebody in my family tried to buy from an eBay pet store and combined shipping didn't work by adding the items to the cart (although according to the seller all additional items after the first one should have been free). We contacted the seller but they replied after the 20% off was over and they had no clear idea what to do and basically told us to pick up the items from the store. Obviously we didn't go ahead with the purchase...

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

digital*ghost — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 09:15:16 GMT

@lyndal1838 wrote:
And something I discovered recently.....if Immediate Payment is on the listing and the Cart is used ebay tell the buyer that THEY (ebay)
will not allow combined postage no matter what the seller has in their listing.

Obviously it's not good for ebay to prevent anything in that regard, but if it's gonna happen, I'm glad to see eBay taking the blame for it, rather than what it usually says (i.e. "this seller does not allow combined postage"). At least it puts the blame where it lies.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

lyndal1838 — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 10:20:05 GMT

Digi, my jaw hit the keyboard when I first saw it.....I had to reread it several times before I could believe it. I have seen it twice, first time about 6 weeks ago.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

digital*ghost — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 10:46:00 GMT

I'm actually hoping that these are teething problems (for lack of a better phrase) that are partly caused (and will therefore be resolved by) the switch from PayPal to on-site payment processing. I know the glitches have been happening forever, but a small part of me hopes it's because eBay always knew it was gonna switch, and the programmers were told to keep that in mind when doing anything re: postage, carts & payments.

I think that's the same part of me also believes in faeries, and I should know better by now, but never the less... I really just hope there's a bigger picture, and that it's not the one titled "get everyone to checkout at the highest cost, as often as possible".

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

purplemon18 — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 12:45:57 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:
I'm actually hoping that these are teething problems (for lack of a better phrase) that are partly caused (and will therefore be resolved by) the switch from PayPal to on-site payment processing. I know the glitches have been happening forever, but a small part of me hopes it's because eBay always knew it was gonna switch, and the programmers were told to keep that in mind when doing anything re: postage, carts & payments.

I think that's the same part of me also believes in faeries, and I should know better by now, but never the less... I really just hope there's a bigger picture, and that it's not the one titled "get everyone to checkout at the highest cost, as often as possible".

Yeah, sorry. But I have absolutely no faith that ebay have any plans of any kind. I still can't beleave that the sold one of the worlds biggest payment processing systems off (paypal) and are now trying to build their own payment system instead.

That's not going to go well. Even if the new system works smoothly (which is incredibly unlikely) they are going to have to ram it down everyone's throats to get us to use it instead of paypal, which will just alienate more people.

-----------------------

Combined postage and invoices don't work for me either, but most of my listings offer free postage anyway so it doesn't come up often.

I'm about to roll out a new template where I reccomend buying tracked shipping instead of the free postage, and I was forced to just say that if they buy multiple items, they only have to buy shipping once. Here's my speil:

"We have confidence in our free shipping method, however, we recommend the Standard Postage (Australia Post Regular Parcel + Tracking) option for only $6, because it includes tracking, and tends to be a little faster. If you purchase multiple items from us at the same time, Click the add to cart button. You only need to purchase tracking for one of those items, and they will be shipped together."

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

digital*ghost — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 14:33:03 GMT

wrote:

Yeah, sorry. But I have absolutely no faith that ebay have any plans of any kind. I still can't beleave that the sold one of the worlds biggest payment processing systems off (paypal) and are now trying to build their own payment system instead.

That's not going to go well. Even if the new system works smoothly (which is incredibly unlikely) they are going to have to ram it down everyone's throats to get us to use it instead of paypal, which will just alienate more people.

I think you underestimate how used to using credit cards online that people actually are - outside of eBay, there's always a good chance that an ecommerce site doesn't even accept PayPal, and although Australians are still quite fond of it, the majority of my international customers prefer using CC, and only about 50% of Aussies stick to PayPal for most of their purchases (I provide both options via two different sites - one is another ecommerce site like this, one is my own site, so I have a pretty decent sample pool of who uses what). PayPal will continue to be offered only for about a year or two once the system changes, so the new system will definitely be rammed down people's throats, as it were.

The other possibility is that once the new payment system comes in, combined postage post-sale will be completely removed from the table - again, that is how it works on almost all ecommerce sites; postage systems are different so I have had to come up with different ways to charge combined postage rates automatically on each one, but (and I know this always makes me very unpopular with a lot of people ) I think it would be worthwhile considering what to do if that becomes an eventuality on eBay.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

lupercal — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 16:51:54 GMT

I don't understand the system (or lack of it) for combined invoices. I've had several customers tell me that they were unable to do anything bu pay for each item immediately, whereas - in fact just a few minutes ago - other customers have made multiple purchases and the option to send a combined invoice is easily available when I look at my sold items. I did talk to ebay about it some time ago, and I thought they'd fixed the problem, but it happened again recently. Since all my items are set up with the same preferences, I'm at a bit of a loss.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

dazzledayz — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 22:31:25 GMT

The OP is not clear about whether or not the failed combined purchases were through the app or not.

The app has never been able to combine postage and will not even respond to a sent invoice.

I usually ask the buyer to complete their purchase via eiher a desktop or "desktop view" using a browser on a mobile device.

eBay's inability to conform to customer demands simply drives people away.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

purplemon18 — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 12:25:09 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:
I think you underestimate how used to using credit cards online that people actually are - outside of eBay, there's always a good chance that an ecommerce site doesn't even accept PayPal, and although Australians are still quite fond of it, the majority of my international customers prefer using CC, and only about 50% of Aussies stick to PayPal for most of their purchases (I provide both options via two different sites - one is another ecommerce site like this, one is my own site, so I have a pretty decent sample pool of who uses what). PayPal will continue to be offered only for about a year or two once the system changes, so the new system will definitely be rammed down people's throats, as it were.

Sorry, that's not quite what I meant. I meant that Paypal is one of the biggest payment processing systems used by online businesses.

According to this website, it's number 2

https://financesonline.com/top-20-payment-gateway-providers/

Ebay has decided to not only sell, but stop using a trusted, well established, and dare I say secure system. Instead they plan to build their own system and force all their customers to use it. Considering how slap together and clunky the ebay site is to use, I'm actually a little scared that ebay's new payment gateway will get hacked shortly after it launches. Personally I plan not to use it for as long as I can. Give them a couple of years to get it working properly.

Leaving that aside, people hate change, so there will also be resistance from regular customers who don't want to switch to a new system. Hell, I still get customers who want to do direct deposit instead of paypal like it's still 2005. They may use other methods when they shop elsewhere, but paypal is just how it's done on ebay for many people.

Anyway, I'm hijacking a thread, so I'll see myself out.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

justcruising49 — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 23:01:17 GMT

I offer combined postage but as most items are buy it now the cart thing will not work. The only way is get the buyer to buy all they want but not pay then send an invoice. But I have been told by a few that buying via a mobile phone does not always work that way and requires immediate payment. I charge $9 postage usually, and refund $8 each time they double pay. As we usually only get 40 listings a month I do not do a special listing order.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

paper-jack — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 01:36:41 GMT

This confirms what Ebay finally told me after 3 online chats to sort out customers that weren't able to access combined postage yet other were able to on the same day. It appears that the only way to ensure one accesses the "Request total" button is to use a desktop device, some phone apps don't support all the features available to tablet/laptop users.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

digital*ghost — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 09:58:53 GMT

@purplemon18 wrote:
@digital*ghost wrote:
I think you underestimate how used to using credit cards online that people actually are - outside of eBay, there's always a good chance that an ecommerce site doesn't even accept PayPal, and although Australians are still quite fond of it, the majority of my international customers prefer using CC, and only about 50% of Aussies stick to PayPal for most of their purchases (I provide both options via two different sites - one is another ecommerce site like this, one is my own site, so I have a pretty decent sample pool of who uses what). PayPal will continue to be offered only for about a year or two once the system changes, so the new system will definitely be rammed down people's throats, as it were.

Sorry, that's not quite what I meant. I meant that Paypal is one of the biggest payment processing systems used by online businesses.

According to this website, it's number 2

https://financesonline.com/top-20-payment-gateway-providers/

Ebay has decided to not only sell, but stop using a trusted, well established, and dare I say secure system. Instead they plan to build their own system and force all their customers to use it. Considering how slap together and clunky the ebay site is to use, I'm actually a little scared that ebay's new payment gateway will get hacked shortly after it launches. Personally I plan not to use it for as long as I can. Give them a couple of years to get it working properly.

Leaving that aside, people hate change, so there will also be resistance from regular customers who don't want to switch to a new system. Hell, I still get customers who want to do direct deposit instead of paypal like it's still 2005. They may use other methods when they shop elsewhere, but paypal is just how it's done on ebay for many people.

Anyway, I'm hijacking a thread, so I'll see myself out.

You do make some good points - my post about holding out hope all the loose threads will be tied together when the system is finally implemented was actually a little tongue in cheek; part nod to the perennial fantasist that I am, and an acknowledgement that that side of me is usually bitterly disappointed where eBay is concerned, but at the same time I think it was inevitable for eBay to move this way, because it should provide buyers with more payment options.

Some buyers will steadfastly refuse to use PayPal, or even can't- and I'm speaking in general since this will be implemented worldwide, so that's the perspective eBay is looking at it from, too - they won't even use PP as a guest, nor want to risk bank deposit, so even though they're likely in the minority, in the long run it should open up eBay to more buyers, as well as (in all liklihood) lower the operating costs for eBay.

My two biggest concerns at this stage are A) what kind of seller protection will be available for chargebacks, and B) ebay having greater control over and access to my revenue, more specifically being in charge of when I get it (this already happens to a degree for some sellers, but at the PayPal level who operate in Australia and have to answer to our industry watchdogs. eBay's operation may not have the same constraints, therefore we sellers may not have the same recourse when something goes wrong).

I suspect they will do what Etsy did, eventually if not at first, which is make PayPal available to buyers, but the payments will be paid to eBay who will then disburse the funds, so no more direct payments into a seller's account.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

artlover74 — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 14:18:12 GMT

Just my 2 bob bit! There's a box I've seen that reads 'remember me for faster checkout', if that box is ticked, you can't combine postage, it will take you straight to PayPal for payment.

Re: Combined Postage PLEASE HELP

padi*0409 — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 22:35:36 GMT

@artlover74 wrote:
Just my 2 bob bit! There's a box I've seen that reads 'remember me for faster checkout', if that box is ticked, you can't combine postage, it will take you straight to PayPal for payment.

Is that box in the eBay account or Paypal account preferences?