Combined postage

[egglesdtp]

Twice in the last couple of days I have had buyers trying to buy multiple items and saying that they get a message which says I don't offer combined postge - but I do!

I have checked the settings on the individual listings and neither have immediate payment required (I don't have it on any of my listings). I have also checked Postage Preferences under site preferences and I have 'Offer combined payments and postage' marked as Yes.

In the past, I have always been able to create a combined invoice for those wishing to buy multiple items - so something has changed, and quite recently. How can I create a combined invoice?

[brerrabbit585]

According to ebay, immediate payment is being rolled out to all sellers whether we like it or not. It's not supposed to happen if you have bank deposit as one of your payment methods but some people have said they have bank deposit ticked and it doesn't make any difference.

Buyers have to use the cart instead of using BIN, and they have to request a combined total from the cart. I don't really understand the cart as I've rarely used it, from what I've read in the forums requesting a total is the same as buying the items. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!

[egglesdtp]

I have bank deposit as one of my payment methods, so that's not it. I asked the first buyer who was having trouble to use the cart to try and get around the issue but that didn't work either.

I've decided to create a combined listing as being the best way round this, but of course this will only work if the buyer lets you know beforehand which items they are interested in. Not all of them do, and refunding excess postage payments is not always the way to go either.

[clarry100]

Ask your buyer if she is using the ebay app on a mobile device.

If so, then its likely that causing the problem.

Ask her to try again using a desktop/laptop if she has access to one.

[egglesdtp]

Hi Clarry

The buyer was using a mobile, and doesn't have access to a desktop/laptop. So I created a special listing that combined both items. Hopefully this will solve the issue for the time being, but what a rigmarole to go through when buyers want to combine purchases. Why can't ebay leave this alone, especially as there is provision for it in the preferences.

[wide-world-of-stamps]

We've had this problem on & off for months, sometimes the same buyer can request a total one time & not the next. As we have a lot of regular buyers, as part of our customer service we tell them to pay the full postage & we'll refund the extra. Although this costs us more in fees, we find that the buyers keep coming back so it's at least partly worthwhile, but very annoying & shouldn't happen.

As we sell low value small items (mostly stamps), we don't offer free postage as we like to encourage buyers to buy multiple items rather than just 1 item at a time for a couple of dollars. 

Wouldn't it be great if Ebay left things alone instead of trying to "improve" them all the time - obviously I'm dreaming even thinking such a thing!

[javacentric]

If the buyer was using a mobile, then the eBay mobile app does not have a function for mulitbuys or combined invoice/postage. It never has, even though it's been around for years now. But eBay never tells the buyers this...

[mirrhing]

If a buyer wishes to purchase more than one item they are forced to use the cart.  When they use the cart, there is no option to request an invoice to get combined postage.  I'm sure I'm missing out on sales due to this.  I had one buyer over-pay on postage by more than $10 because they bought 6 items and Ebay wouldn't confirm purchase without payment, and simply added all the postage costs together.  I'm sick of doing refunds.  When we had the invoice request available, if someone overpaid because they didn't ask, I would refund less the Ebay fee.  With buyers not getting the choice to request an invoice, I am now refunding the full amount, so how do I go about getting my fees back on the postage refunds?  Another glitch in the system seems to be the handling time.  Mine is set to 1 day, but I have sales over the last 2 weeks with as much as 5 days handling.  The whole system seems to be very scrambled with new glitches popping up each day.  I'll be bald by Christmas if this keeps up.

[twyngwyn]

have your buyer do this:

Here's the steps about removing the automatic payment checkout:

1.Go to My eBay.

2.Click Account

3.Select Personal Information

4.Scroll down to Financial Information

5.Click Remove on the right side of Checkout saved payment methods

they should then be able to buy WITHOUT immediate payment

[mirrhing]

Thanks twyngwyn.  Will see how that goes.  How do I go about getting fees back from Ebay?