Are you experiencing problems with eBay Checkout?

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I’ve had an email from an eBay seller who reports that buyers are having problems with Checkout on eBay and I was wodering whether anyone was experiencing anything similar.

Here’s the problem in short, as I understand it: buyers are putting multiple items into their basket/checkout but they aren’t allowed to pay for them together and have to pay one by one. There is no option visible for the buyer to ask for a combined invoice.

Obviously this a right pain in the backside for a seller, who has to go through a rigmarole to refund payments, reissue invoices and generally faff around to give combined postage discounts etc.

Whilst it certainly doesn’t seem to be universal, the seller in question says he thinks it tends to affect people who are buying using mobile or tablets and US buyers in particularly seem to be experiencing it more widely. But that might not be correct.

The seller in question has been in contact with eBay customer support who accept that there may be a problem but equally have been a bit shy to give a straight answer that this is a glitch they are working to fix.

Has anyone else been having similar problems?

13 Responses

  1. Yes, had to use the computer because my mobile didn’t accept the discoubt postage. Annoying but easily sorted .

  2. Some of my overseas customers have reported problems in combining purchases, but this is not particularly recent, it’s been happening for a while. I just put it down to random glitches, but now I wonder?

  3. One way of ebay increasing revenue is to charge overseas shipping twice on the invoice. No wonder ebay don’t fix this and no wonder I have given up on overseas shipping for the most part.

  4. yes problems here

    combined shipping check out settings are just ignored , no discounts, full postage is charged for multiple purchase on international sales,unless we get there first and alter the invoice

  5. This is not particularly new.

    But lots of buyers are finding that they can no longer buy on eBay without paying ‘one at a time’.

    This is now especially the case for some International buyers who find that they have no option but to pay immediately even though sellers have not set this as a requirement.

    eBay are really pissing users off, buyers and sellers in equal measure.

    CS are no help, they are suggesting things to International buyers like ‘ask for a PayPal invoice’ but there is nothing to ask an invoice for if you have to pay one at a time.

    What is happening though is that buyers are increasingly bypassing eBay.

    eBay needs to wake up.

  6. I’ve had a number of customers complain about this and get into difficulties with the payment process even though they are experienced ebay buyers.

    Also yesterday and today a lot of the time you can only search on Best Match. Click the arrow for alternative search methods and nothing happens. So those of us who offer the best overall deal on price and p&p are losing business.

  7. Morning Dan,
    I’m the seller who contact you regarding this.
    Thanks for putting this out to Tamebay. My sanity is restored, knowing I’m not the only person seeing this.
    However, due to my nature (I’m a natural worrier) I’ve now blocked all outside EU as I’m hearing this could be a .com issue also.
    I have my nerves to look after!
    Some wonderful “workaround advise” given to me via ebay chat I had besides being on my computer 24 hours a day and sending invoices out before the customer completed payment (for example, at 3:30am), was to ask customers not to use tablets or mobiles when checking out, but a desktop only and to have it big bold letters on the description “DO NOT CHECKOUT-WE WILL SEND AN INVOICE”. As we’ve had this on our template since Sept ’13, it’s obvious that either the buyer can’t read, understand or more likely, cannot comply, as they are forced to pay without either adding to their basket or contacting the seller for a revised invoice.
    The whole point of this coming to head was not because it was happening, but because when refunding the customer their excess shipping they paid, thus combining the shipping (and therefore being a “customer friendly seller” by saving them shipping costs), we had to fight time and again for a refund via ebay for the extra shipping fees we had paid for.
    They have now informed us that they will no longer refund us any more shipping fees if this happens again..even though this an ebay problem.
    I’ve contacted them 5 times in January via chat and phone. I’ve pretty much had 4 different versions of what is happening, fix schedules and what to do. One advisor stated we will always be able to ask for the shipping fees refunded without question when correctly done, while this checkout problem continues. The rest have said “No more refunds”.
    As usual, jumping through hoops with no real solutions.

  8. I have had this problem a while and has been mainly USA customers.
    EBAY CS told me a workaround which is asking the customer to log in to EBAY.co.uk but too late if they have already paid multiple times.
    In the good old days I could just refund the extra they paid in postage NOT a problem, but now, ebay will not issue a credit to us for over paid postage fees so we have to say to the customer, sorry but we can refund all but the ebay fees on the postage.
    I URGE them to complain to EBAY and hopefully they do.

  9. This is also a big problem for me, especially my US buyers… I am so fed-up with it that I won’t refund postage and will send each “multiple” purchase separately if it’s been paid that way.

    I can’t help thinking that this is software problem that eBay/PayPal are in no hurry to fix as it does generate a lot of extra cash for them…

  10. Yes, I am experiencing this problem accross the board. For the USA, Australia and other international Websites.
    Ebay is charging us postage commission and is not offering a functional “Basket” to check out items together and pay for them at once.
    As I am a fair and honest seller, I do refund the over paid postage back to the buyer, but of course I do not get the percentage of fees paid to ebay back from ebay.
    It would be good if Tamebay could push this issue with ebay.
    This problem has been ongoing for a while now.

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