"Ebay’ ‘Request Total From Seller’ Option, Combined Shiping" Topic

Even though many sellers of wargaming and model terrain materials say that they offer combined shipping, as long as you don't click the "Pay This Seller" button* … when you actually look at the items that you selected on your ebay shopping cart, that seller's "Request Total From Seller" button does not look activated.

It is gray in color instead of blue, meaning that it is not an active link.

You are only left with two options then … pay full shipping charges for each item, even though the tiny items will all fit in the same darn little box, or not buy at all. I even PMd 5-6 sellers to tell them of the issue, they couldn't understand why it wasn't working. One even said that if the button wasn't activated then they couldn't do anything about it, because it was "an ebay issue". I asked if they planned to take it up with ebay and I got no reply. Needless to say, I didn't buy.

Anyone else getting problems with this when you are ready to pay for a seller's multiple items on your ebay cart?

Thanks

Dan
* Most sellers will flat out tell you that, if you click on the "Pay This Seller" button, they won't be able to give you any combined shipping then for that purchase.

Just ask the seller to combine before you pay.

Yes, you'd think.

But all the 5-6 sellers told me to do was to click on the "Request Total From Seller" button in the cart, even though I had already told them that the button wasn't activated for their items.

Do wargaming and model terrain materials sellers simply not check periodically to see how their items look when viewed from a consumer's shopping cart?

Something has definitely changed for many of them on ebay, and they don't seem to know it, or they must assume that everything can be sorted out fine if you simply pay for the lot with full shipping fees on each item. Good luck if you're expecting a refund on overpaid shipping.

Dan

I've had a few sellers refund the excess charges to my PayPal account -- didn't have to, but they chose to. I knew it going in, as I, too, cannot always make it work. Now, I just expect to get clubbed (as in, 'take a beating') on shipping. If I am unwilling to pay it, I pass on the purchase; otherwise, I pay it, knowing that if I bought the items from different sellers, I'd pay the shipping each time, anyway.

You are in the driver's seat: your money, your call. Pay, or do not pay, as Yoda would say. Cheers!

This happens to me every little once in a while. If I'm a returning customer, I email them and get a total from them. If it's a first time, I pay and email them and, to a person, they have refunded the difference.

I email first and ask about combined shipping. They have always said wait and they send me a combined total.

That's the one I click and pay.

Dan,

I recently started re-selling my items again on eBay after several years away.

A chap contacted me a several weeks ago telling me he couldn't combine postage and I told him that naturally I would refund any excess postage he paid and the transaction proceeded.

I went to revise my item so the option was available. I looked for the appropriate button to activate the option, changed a few things and thought that the issue was solved.

That was until last Sunday when a Gentleman contacted me with the exact same problem. I discovered the issue was a preference setting on the sellers dashboard page that I had failed to edit to offer combined postage.

I genuinely had no idea that people couldn't combine postage and as all the other details were that same as last time when setting up the page to sell, I just thought the combine postage option was available.

As a buyer, I always ask ahead of time about combined shipping and how much it would be if I won the items I am interested in. I can't think of a time I never got a response.
As a seller, I offer combined shipping on like items I can combine. Books with books for example to use Media Mail. If they ask ahead of time like my auctions say to do I have them go through the shopping cart. If it doesn't work or they dont ask ahead of time I will refund partial shipping fees. Just had that 2 days ago for some one who bought some squires outright. Didnt ask for combined shipping but I did anyways.

Grimm

Cyrus +1.

It is really not a big deal.

I'm not a very computer savvy guy, but I've never had an issue with either sending or receiving an excess postage refund.

As a seller I always advertise 'combined postage'… Ebay on the other hand, often has a different idea…

I end up having to refund 3-4 people a week through Paypal for combined postage. It can be a chore….

Yes I had the same problem – he couldn't see it from his end and I couldn't get a new total. I had "bought" 6 items and total postage was close to USD100 – so I wanted to take advantage of the combined.

Ended up getting 6 no pay ratings against me from ebay.

I have only had this issue once. Because the seller had selected some kind of bargain offer connected to a couple of the items, the "request total" was greyed out. I contacted the seller and within 15 minutes they had it sorted out and the checkout had the shipping corrected.

Some sellers just can't be bothered (or don't know how) to fix their settings.

When seling, I always send an invoice and manually combine the shipping from there. In the past month or so I've had a few buyers send the combine shipping request with no problems.

I usually send an invoice manually, but sometimes customers will beat me to the punch.

If they emailed me about it, I would send the invoice as soon as I was near a computer.

If they paid the extra that ebay charged (like 5x small flat rate) I refund them.

I just learned you can't do invoicing from the app. This means if you use a phone or tablet, even if you try the website, it doesn't give you the option to send an invoice