Dave,
I saw your post on the other SCF forum, but I no longer post there. Selling fixed price items will be automatically combined by
ebay unless the buyer pays for one before buying the other. If the problem is with "buy it now" in auctions, I recommend setting a minimum acceptable starting price. I see very little upside to "buy it now". Most
ebay stamp auctions have too few bidders resulting in many sales at the reserve. The problem description suggests that shipping settings are messed up or are inconsistent.
Three or four years ago, I switched to "free shipping" to fix a gradual decline in shipping DSR numbers. I have not had any problems combining multiple items on an invoice with free shipping. I have had persistent problems when buyers try to combine international shipping. For some reason
ebay fails to recognize combined shipping rules and mixes in "promotional" shipping rules that no one really understands. Actually, since I was forced to switch from domestic First Class Mail to First Class Package, it costs less to ship to Canada or even the rest of the world because it is still possible to send stamps in a First Class Mail International letter instead of an expensive and overpriced package.
When I started selling color slides at auction, in addition to more bidders, many buyers win multiple auctions. The result is that by bundling the shipping cost into the price, being able to combine shipments is quite profitable. I start color slides at $6 and most stamps at auction at $9.99 or above with free shipping. I moved all of the under $15 fixed price stamps from
ebay to bidStart because stamps under about $25 are not very profitable. I am moving in the direction of more group lots to get rid of less expensive or lower quality stamps.
Finally, all of the advice being given on the other site about using the
ebay web site is like trying to learn logic from the barking of dogs. The
ebay web site has become less reliable and is over complicated. I doubt if all of the option combinations possible on the web site have ever been tested by anyone. Most sellers who plan to sell much volume use a web or desktop application. TurboLister from
ebay is free and while it doesn't handle post sale processing, it is better than nothing, but not much better.
I use the SixBit ecommerce web application. It is related to Blackthorne because the same development team worked on both products. A free or starter version exists. Once installed, and some learning curve issues are overcome, it is much better and faster than the
ebay web site. It is possible to define shipping presets that make it possible specify combined shipping rules in one place. However, since
ebay is always in a state of flux, at some point
ebay "business policies" will have to be set up on the
ebay web site. I can wait. I hate to use their web site for anything other than to watch running listings or do a quick check of sales.
Using a database based desktop application has many advantages. I have all of my sales data going back at least 8 years. It is possible to list something and set it aside if it does not sell and list it a few months later without worrying about the listing rolling off the
ebay database. Finally, the best reason is that I don't generally have problems with buyers paying separately for multiple items. It happens occasionally, but I don't worry much about it. The most recent case was a buyer who won an inexpensive item at auction and paid for it. The next day, he bought four fixed price items and paid for them separately. Because it is possible to combine the order in SixBit and ship the five items together, I saved $2.32 in discount postage. So what if I paid an extra 30 cents to PayPal.
Selling is more important than worrying unnecessarily about small blips in the cost of selling.
I probably will be at the APS AmeriStamp Expo in Riverside in February. We can talk then or you can send a private message.
Clark
Posted 10/31/2014 11:18 pm
