General Forum

I've asked some sellers if they combine shipping and some flat out say no, some are automatically combined in cart. I recently asked a seller if they combined and they said they did, but when attempting to checkout with 5 cards shipping was showing as 18 bucks. The seller said it doesn't allow them to combine shipping so I need to pay for it and then they would refund the diff.....is that just a goofy seller? (I just moved on since it was 6 bucks of cards with 18 shipping)

eBay is wonky, especially if it's a mix of accepted offers, auction won and/or BIN all mixed together; eBay won't allow for a combined shipping through the request button. I've had to send the seller a message and ask for them to combine and they'll send an invoice. Some sellers aren't eBay savvy though. They haven't figured out how to do it so I'll send a messgae before checking out. Most say they'll refund and they always do (guess I've been lucky). Some will send an invoice with the combined shipping. Krukcards is great when it's comes to combining. Not only will they autocalculate it, but if you pay excess postage after that they'll always refund the excess amount. They just did it for me again.

It's about the settings the seller has, though I don't sell so I'm not familiar with them.

I am an ebay seller and always combine shipping on multiple items. As a buyer I would not buy from someone that does not combine shipping. This is why I still have a lot of cards in storage on etopps.

 As a seller on Ebay,  I have tried to give discounts on shipping but it prevents me.  I forget exactly what the reason is but it just won't allow it.    Probably because it would lower their portion of the sale.   I have sent buyers unused stamps as a way around it. 

That's not unusual at all. Happened to me this weekend. 

Yes, it can be difficult to get combined shipping.  If any of the items that are bought have some percent discount, ebay will not allow a buyer to request a total, claiming that the seller's discount has already been applied.  As a seller, I always offer combined shipping & send revised invoices when I can.  I will often have to issue partial refunds for those forced to overpay ebay's automated invoices.  Since ebay takes a share of the postage costs, counting it towards the "final value" of the sale, they are not too concerned with helping its users save money at the cost of their profits.

I've looked into this as a seller, and ebay themselves posted a response that suggested the seller manually refund postage after the buyer pays full shipping.  Seems like an inefficient way for both the seller and the buyer.

Very inefficient, for everyone but ebay, as they collect the fees from the higher amount of the transaction, and don't lose anything when the seller gives a refund.

Explains the why. It's been mixed for me - but it does look like combined shipping no longer works if there is a discount applied. I complained LOUD to Ebay and they officially ignored me saying it was a seller's issue. The sellers involved didn't care - so they didn't get a sale. No way I'll spend $20 to ship 4 baseball cards.  Also, I don't know when this started because it wasn't always like this.

Probably started getting worse once eBay had to start applying sales tax on transactions for certain states. Allows them to get even more money..... No, not an official response, a SWAG...