Combine Shipping Manually

[So Cal Joe]

I do not offer combined shipping through automatically through Ebay. I sell a large variety of items and I don’t think the shipping calculator is accurate enough to handle them.

However on request, I will gladly combine shipping on a case by case basis.

This morning two different scenarios occurred.

#1 buyer sent a message, requesting I ship 4 books (3 listings) for free, using a Flat rate padded envelope. It made sense and I agreed. I instructed him to buy them, but don’t pay until you receive my invoice.

He bought the first one and his payment went through automatically for the entire amount including shipping. (maybe his account is set up to pay automatically?) He immediately requested a cancellation. To save the sale I agreed to cancel and then changed each listing to free shipping.

He bought them all and it’s good, but I could tell he didn’t appreciate the clunky way I handled it.

#2 buyer sent a message requesting total shipping for 2 identical items. I told him $10 should do it. He bought the items and Ebay charge him $9.17 shipping. He paid right away before I could invoice him. I don’t know where that number came from as it is more than the single item shipping charge.

Both buyers put the items in their carts and expected me to send an invoice total to them. Is there a way to do this, other than sending a message. Neither one had yet hit the “Buy it Now button.

It seems I’m always doing a work around to handle these cases. I’m guessing if I call Ebay regarding the 2nd scenario, they will tell me it’s a glitch. I have no intention of calling them over 83 cents.

Is there a more streamlined way to handle this?

Thanks

[AdventureE]

Hello,

This link from ebay maybe of benefit.

https://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/sc

just type in invoice or invoicing into the search bar.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by AdventureE.

[Sharyn]

I agree that ebay does not have a reasonable method for combining shipping. I think it worked out maybe once or twice where I gave instructions for invoicing, and it actually worked the way it is supposed to. The best method I’ve found is to refund any overage through PayPal.

I don’t know why the shipping on your second sale came out screwy. Any time someone has bought two of something, the shipping came out higher than needed. I assumed that ebay combined the weight of the two items and made the calculation off of that. The weight was based on each item plus packaging, so the total was more than required.

[So Cal Joe]

I see, it actually doubled the weight on the 2nd item. Since there’s no way to check SmartPost rates without creating a listing, I gave a combined shipping rate based on USPS. I wonder what it did with the dimensions. It’s shipping close by, so an oversize package may not even cost more.

The mystery of the 2nd item is solved.. Oh Boy.

[AdventureE]

I found this Fed Ex link and thought it might be of benefit.

http://www.fedex.com/us/smartpostguide/smartpost/smartpost_rates_zones.html

[Sharyn]

You should be able to calculate Smartpost rates using the following shipping calculator through ebay (thanks Mike from Atlanta!):
http://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator

I don’t know about the dimensions. Someone recently complained that ebay calculated shipping too low when combining several items because the package became oversized. So, that is definitely an issue.

In addition, I should mention that ebay does not provide an easy method for promoting combined purchases, at least not for only a certain category of products. So, let’s say that you want to offer 10% off if someone buys 3 or more items in your store. Even if the customer allows you to invoice them, ebay will only allow you to change the shipping cost, not reduce the purchase price. A promotion for combined purchases has to come through PayPal, which means the customer has to pay first.

I tried to come up with a way to promote multiple purchases within a certain store category of books, but the only way I can do it is through PayPal refunds.

[So Cal Joe]

Cool shipping calculator. I haven’t seen that one before. I called Fedex a while back trying to get a Smartpost estimate and it was impossible.

In the Promotions portion of Ebay they have all kinds of options regarding promotions and reduced cost based on multiple purchases. You can create promotions based on your stores categories. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out.

[Author]

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