Selling to the USA and UK . Buyers are having to pay for each individual sale.

[bonza-cards-australia]

Myself and at least 6 other card sellers are getting alot of complaints by our overseas buyers in both the US and UK .  We have all complained to ebay and are getting no where.   Our customers want to purchase more than 1 item at a time usually a minimum of 5 up to 20 items and straight after purchase are directed to pay immediately.  so they have to pay for every item seperately and hence cant be bothered .  Who can blame them?  Why is this happening when ebay customer support has told me i have my settings correct?  How can it be corrected ?

[bonza-cards-australia]

Today I got onto customer support by telephone and asked to be transferred to ebay.com.  I was told that this is going to take along time to fix as it is not a site issue but a deliberate change that ebay has made.  She said that the change was made as people were purchasing 10 items and putting in a claim for the whole order when only 1 item went missing.  So by making them pay for every item on buyitnow seperately it makes claiming easier.  I doubt that is the reason.  However she has put in an official complaint,  I explained if that change hits ebay australia in the coming months then 1000's will be affected as people from Aus wont be able to combine on Buy it Now products from overseas also. 

Next I phoned Paypal 1800461973.  They were unaware of the changes made by Ebay.  I asked them if they could look at their figures and check if there had been an increase in refunds from Australian account holders.  I also told them some had received warnings regarding the excessive refunds and asked them to note that  it would continue due to the fact the 'cart' was not an option etc.  They were very interested and would take it up higher and look into it .   They have now emailed me and I have to send it all in a written reply.  I suggested to them they would be hearing from others, so feel free to hound them lol.  If nothing else they can make a note on sellers accounts so that it will not affect their ratings or seller protection status.

[toygirl70]

and the problem continues....they are destroying the customer experience for both buyers and sellers. I have a non shop aussie ebay ID which just does auctions and has "business policies" for post, payment and returns, I don't have the same problem with this as the cart options would be irrelevant. Ebay Aus/UK US need to wake up to this and realise that it will ultimately damage trade and as a result ebays overall income. Why do these big companies allow such tossers to make such dumb irritating decisions/

[oldregretscolt]

Still happening here toygirl. Overnight a buyer purchased from several card sellers and was so annoyed that she had to pay for each separate item. Apparently if they log into Ebay Australia they can shop and await combined invoice like the good old days. Overnight was the first change I have had to advise this but with UK buyers shoppping in the middle of our night time. Kind of like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

[toygirl70]

OK, Ebay Australia have finally replied to me about this and provided a work around solution. I had already done it a couple of times so at least we are both thinking along similar lines, however it is difficult to communicate to buyers prior to their purchases without adjusting a couple of thousand listings. Still there is now agreement from ebay that a problem exists. This is the transcript of their reply:-

"Thanks for contacting eBay about combining invoice.

I understand that purchases from US or UK buyers are not combined automatically, in fact,we already sent a report to our techinal team to check the problem.However, no resolution has been provided as yet.My suggestion for now since the issue is still unresolve, you can send a Paypal Manual invoice to your US/UK buyers so they will not pay for their items individually.Here's how.

1.Log in to your PayPal account. 2.Click Request Money. 3.Click Create a money request or Create an invoice. 4.Enter the required information. 5.Click Continue. 6.Review the information and click Request Money or Send invoice.

You can use this option while we are waiting for this issue to be resolved.For now, we appreciate your patience while we work on resolving this matter.

Have a great day."

Lets hope it is resolved swiftly

[oldregretscolt]

Thanks Toygirl.  We have been doing that where possible but unfortunately most of our UK buyers are shopping overnight and we wake up to the list of purchases and single payments.  Not every customer wants to work outside ebay either.  It is just not fair that ebay has made this so difficult for us.  Buyers are walking away still.

Ebay tells you they are working toward solving the issue yet they told me the issue was due to an upgrade in UK and US and is here to stay.

Just ONE straight answer would be nice!

Will keep you posted. Thanks again for your input, Sue

[bonza-cards-australia]

hi Toygirl I dont get it.  I have never heard of Ebay suggesting to sell outside of Ebay, so the work around solution they have provided in your message does not work.  How can we send them a Paypal invoice if they have already been paid for ??????????

  The buyers are not purchasing without payment so we cant charge them twice..   Every one of my customers cannot purchase a 2nd or 3rd item until they have paid for the 1st item.  Each item has to be paid for as it is purchased so that solution by Ebay does not work as customers would be paying twice.  Have they understood your query correctly?  or am I confused?

[oldregretscolt]

I just sent ebay a message saying that one seller was advised to 'take it outside ebay'. I asked if this was correct or against policy as I may follow that instruction. Will let you know what they say,

[toygirl70]

Hi Guys, when UK/US buyers go to complete the purchase, they are either forced to pay instantly or complete the checkout process stating how they will pay. So they can complete 'checkout' and state they are paying by bank transfer/cheque etc... yet another flaw when you think about it. When they complete checkout for each individual item, you cannot combine into a single invoice...hence small problem. OK with me so far. So at this stage we still have a problem. However as they have not paid, but complete checkout for each item, we can see their email address. We can also add up the cost of each item and work out what we would charge for combined shipping to produce a total. So we now need to contact them via ebay messages and inform them of the total. Then sign into PayPal and send a request for the amount to their email address. If done correctly most buyers are happy. It is a pain and time consuming, but if you can prevent the payment this is a work around. When they agree to buy and and are forced to complete checkout, the sale takes place  within the confines of ebay, but the invoicing is done via PayPal. I hope this makes sense. I have done it 2 or 3 times prior to getting the response from ebay. Take a look at paypal and requesting money to familiarise yourself with it a little, practise with a mate, you know for 10 cents etc.. 

[bonza-cards-australia]

Ok thankyou so that is where we differ my US and UK buyers cannot go to checkout and NOT pay.  so that is not an option for me as all has been paid for.   I have had to add "other" as an option to all my listings but people are still trying to continue to shop hence generating 10 payments and 10 items to be refunded for postage.

[oldregretscolt]

Not to mention that if you refund those 10 payments and send ONE invoice................the invoice seems not to be received by them. The new invoice has been known to go AWOL. There is no tidy way to do it.