BUYER CHECKOUT ISSUE

[ibags-it]

Hi

I've exhausted all options. I have had an ongoing checkout issue with buyers.
Our items are large and bulk with freight calculated seperately. Buyer go to purchase and they get an error message "The item can't be purchased becuase the seller hasn't specified freight/delivery charges, contact the seller or assistance" There is no order processed for us to do this to add on the quoted freight charges.

The only way our buyers can purchase, is by us sending them a manual offer and force the sale through to checkout. This started happening in December 2020.

I have raised this multiple times with chat agents and they don't do anything. I've repeatidly asked for the matter to be escalated and nothing. The agents then purposly disconnect the chat and the transcript reflects that I exited the chat, which has not been the case. It's just too hard for them to resolve or they have no other avenues. There are no numbers to call for support.

Our buyers have been very helpful in sending through screen shots, I've emailed to customerhelp_au@ebay.com but this appears to be unmanned. No contact phone numbers or support provided in Australia any more. 

Any help would be appreciated cause none is coming from ebay.
Geoff

[digital*ghost]

Is it with all buyers, or just some?

Sometimes eBay will trigger an immediate payment requirement for a buyer (or seller's items), regardless of whether that setting is in place on the item itself, and it can occur randomly / suddenly - if your buyers were hitting this checkout requirement, they wouldn't be able to purchase without a postage quote,

Would rate tables work for you?

I'm assuming you have it set as freight because costs vary widely, and I can't say for sure if rate tables will align with your courier's rates and zones, but it can be a good way to have shipping costs quoted up front for buyers and I'd think would negate this problem.

Info copied from eBay's help pages in the spolier below:

Spoiler

Postage Rate Tables

We always recommend you offer free postage. But where you do charge, you can set up postage rate tables. With postage rate tables for can:

1. Set postage costs for 100 regions, with up to 20 unique tables per account
2. Specify cut-off times for same-day handling for accurate delivery estimates
3. Give buyers choice with costs for Standard and Express delivery. 

To offer free postage to certain regions, just set the value in your table to $0. If you leave a field blank, we’ll calculate the rate based on your specified flat postage cost.

You can set your postage rates based on three criteria:

1. Item: Set different rates and options for further locations
2. Weight: Fixed base cost + additional amount per kg
3. Surcharge: Choose a base cost and add a surcharge by region

Once you’ve created rate tables, you can apply them to individual listings, or in bulk using our bulk edit tool. You can also create a business policy to apply rules to your listings. 

You can create postage rate tables within Postage Preferences, located in the Site Preferences tab of your My eBay Account.

[ibags-it]

Thanks for your reply and really appreciate our help.
It seems to be happening with all listings. At least, we o it know if a buyer contacts us to advise of the error. Some may just deem it as too hard and walk away.
Yes, our products go to regional areas a lot of the time and freight differs greatly. It used to be good when we had a tool in our listings, which was code provided by our courier company, and buyers could use the tool themselves. They got rid of all this content and we have to manually quote every enquiry.
As far as I know, none of our buyers can go straight to payment. They go to pay, hit an option to ‘request total from seller’, the order comes to us and we either set it up for local pickup - zero freight or add on the freight charges.
Would it be worth deleting all listings and starting from scratch again?

[digital*ghost]

I honestly don't know - I can't say for sure if it's the immediate payment issue, nor whether a new listing would resolve it. If that is the problem, a new listing may still have the same issue. 

It does appear that is the problem to me, though - I tried both using the Buy It Now option and the add to cart option on one of your listings, and neither would allow me to proceed and confirm the purchase, it just wanted me to pay and said that wasn't possible since their were no delivery costs specified. 

Were you switched to managed payments around the same time this started happening, by any chance? I can see GPay is a payment option on your listings, so I'm assuming you've been switched over to that, and wonder if ebay is attempting to phase out the option to confirm purchases without the buyer paying for the item(s) under the new system.

If you wanted to test whether a new listing would solve the problem, you could try with a test listing, or just with one of your current listings (no point ending them all and re-starting if it won't fix).

Info on test listings can be found here, if it helps: https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/test-listings-policy?id=5039

Rate tables do allow you to specify different costs to different regions of Australia, so you can have a different rates for metro and regional areas in the same state - if there's a chance they would work for you with the options they provide, it should resolve this issue as well since then a shipping cost would be quoted up front.

[ibags-it]

Thanks again. Yes, we were forced into managed payments and it happened around the same time. I will try your suggestions.
Is it pointless trying to get ebay to do anything?

[katistrophik]

digi will know way better than me, but I think I would contact eBay as a Last Resort.

Try one listing first digi suggested, see how you go

[ibags-it]

I tried recreating one listing and seem to work. So did them all. Now buyers are still having the issue.
Really over it. Still forced to send manual offers to every sale.
Contacted ebay for the 6th time and no assistance. They’ve not heard of the issue. You think they’d be a little more interested in a big that’s stopping buyers from buying. That’s what we’re all here for.
Rate tables will not work. The variation in freight for regional and rural areas is significant.
Any other suggestions?

[spraypaintsupplies]

I feel your pain. I've been trying to overcome this issue for a couple of years now. Lost so much business because of it since managed payments started. We have noticed this extra complication that mite save some confusion though; the old "Request total" option (hard enough for buyers to find on a laptop) doesn't appear AT ALL when customers buy on their phones.

Unfortunately this pretty-much forces buyers onto listings with blanket freight charges included in the price and guess-who gets a bigger fee.