topic Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone in Selling

Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

soogar-creations — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:03:56 GMT

Automated combine shipping works fine when buyers are on their laptop or desktop computer. But when they use their mobile it does not work, even if I sent out an updated invoice. And they end up paying each item separately plus postage for each item. To keep my customers happy I've had to refund the shipping and making a loss due to eBay charging 'Final Value Fee on Shipping' which is very frustrating.

I have contacted customer service and they have informed me that I am the first to ever complain about this. I am hoping that I am not alone.

Or should I just remove the automated combine shipping option and just go back to manually combining the shipping?

Has any experienced this?

Kind regards,
Kim

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

i-love-my-sheep — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:13:39 GMT

It's been a long known issue that you can't combine postage on the phone app. I think eBay is telling porkies that no-one has complained about it. If your buyers only have a phone, no computer, you could cancel the transactions, refund and then relist the items they bought as a bulk lot BIN, with a single postage cost.

If you choose to just refund the excess postage costs, you could refund minus the fees you get charged on the total postage cost.

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

soogar-creations — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:26:52 GMT

Thank you so much for your help!

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

thecatspjs — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:33:00 GMT

Buyers can make payments via their mobiles by using their web brower to access eBay and choosing classic site and NOT through the eBay app or mobile view.

I make payment via paypal for multiple purchases using my iphone this way. .

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

digital*ghost — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:37:34 GMT

@thecatspjs wrote:
Buyers can make payments via their mobiles by using their web brower to access eBay and choosing classic site and NOT through the eBay app or mobile view.

I advise buyers to do this in my shipping TOS, but not too many read that... I'd say I have to let at least one or two buyers know how to work around this issue a week, and not one single person has replied with "thanks, but I'd rather pay individually for my items".

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

ydgonline06 — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:46:27 GMT

The problem is the `defect` the seller would earn for instigating the cancellation, as the buyer presently cannot instigate a cancellation

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

ydgonline06 — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:49:09 GMT

Sorry, this was a reply to i love my sheep`s answer earlier

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

digital*ghost — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:50:35 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:

I advise buyers to do this in my shipping TOS, but not too many read that...

No I don't...which explains why no one reads it I thought I updated it with that info, but I only added it as an info box on the store pages, but that's now gone because I upgraded to the new design.

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

soogar-creations — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 13:01:51 GMT

Thank you everyone for your advice. It's really disappointing that eBay app is not up to scratch.

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

bigbrickshop — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 00:57:10 GMT

I read somewhere that recent versions of the app can do combined payments. I can't confirm that though because I have an original iPad (do they call it an iPad 1?) and I downloaded the app but because it is so out of date it can't download any of the updates.

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

i-love-my-sheep — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 01:16:44 GMT

@thecatspjs wrote:
Buyers can make payments via their mobiles by using their web brower to access eBay and choosing classic site and NOT through the eBay app or mobile view.

I make payment via paypal for multiple purchases using my iphone this way. .

That never occurred to me, thanks!!!

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

thecatspjs — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 11:43:29 GMT

@bigbrickshop wrote:
I read somewhere that recent versions of the app can do combined payments. I can't confirm that though because I have an original iPad (do they call it an iPad 1?) and I downloaded the app but because it is so out of date it can't download any of the updates.

They are working on an update for apples that will combine purchases. As far as I know it has not been released yet, but don't think it is far away.

It will not resolve the issue however for older devices

That being said though, if there was a tad of PROMOTION by eBay of the work-around of how to pay for items by using browser and classic view, then it wouldn't be so much of an issue.

grrrrrrr.....

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

thecatspjs — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 12:21:29 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:
@digital*ghost wrote:
I advise buyers to do this in my shipping TOS, but not too many read that...
No I don't...which explains why no one reads it I thought I updated it with that info, but I only added it as an info box on the store pages, but that's now gone because I upgraded to the new design.

Thank you for your honesty DG .. this made me truly LOL ... very loudly indeed ........ gosh needs a thread all of its own ... I have had some eBay selling (or posting) moments that made me flush myself....pretty sure others have too ..

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

book-of-hezekiah — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 04:16:16 GMT

Just ninjaing in to ask Cats, is this what you mean when you say "flush yourself"?

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

digital*ghost — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 04:35:54 GMT

@thecatspjs wrote:
Thank you for your honesty DG .. this made me truly LOL ... very loudly indeed ........ gosh needs a thread all of its own ... I have had some eBay selling (or posting) moments that made me flush myself....pretty sure others have too ..

I might've been able to get away with it if it weren't for that pesky conscience (Plus, I'd say more than a few regulars here could've checked and pulled me up on it ).

I think I'll do what I said I was going to months ago and add it to the checkout instructions, hopefully some may see it there.

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

thecatspjs — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:47:47 GMT

@book-of-hezekiah wrote:
Just ninjaing in to ask Cats, is this what you mean when you say "flush yourself"?

.... not

bahahahaha

nah wasn't quite what I meant ....

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

littlefauxdesigns1 — Wed, 23 May 2018 21:38:55 GMT

It's now 2018 anyone got new insight for this drama!! i'm newish seller & have been struggling with this for so long. huge impact on lost sales:( Everyone uses mobile phones to buy!!

i am now considering the only way is to make up i adjusted individual coupon they can add in the cart options? when they message me what to do! I cannot send them an invoice the 'reply with offer in messeges is not what id like because customers can say i sent them the wrong items as only one item can be sellected in messages?? Normally customers want different items to combine. Arhhh!!

Re: Problems with automated combine shipping when buyer makes purchases on a mobile phone

dazzledayz — Thu, 24 May 2018 00:14:52 GMT

@littlefauxdesigns1 wrote:
It's now 2018 anyone got new insight for this drama!! i'm newish seller & have been struggling with this for so long. huge impact on lost sales:( Everyone uses mobile phones to buy!!
i am now considering the only way is to make up i adjusted individual coupon they can add in the cart options? when they message me what to do! I cannot send them an invoice the 'reply with offer in messeges is not what id like because customers can say i sent them the wrong items as only one item can be sellected in messages?? Normally customers want different items to combine. Arhhh!!

You will be much better off starting a new thread rather than playing with amongst the ZOMBIEs.

The app has always been carrap and, given the complexity of eBay and the allowable size of apps (which need to be very small), there were always going to be issues (and always will be).

Just let your customers know via your listings that any combined postage needs to be done on the full site using desktop view on a mobile.

Another option is to ask buyers to simply add items to their watchlist on mobile then wait till they get home to complete the purchase.

There is a new technology on the horizon called PWA (Progressive Web Applications) which should solve a lot of these problems once it becomes widespread.

This tech allows conventional websites to run like mobile apps on mobile devices of any type and on any platform.

eBay are probably already looking into it as it significantly reduces development costs and users won't have to download site apps at all.