Combined shipping for items with Buy It Now
Summary: The discussion revolves around the challenges of shipping costs being charged multiple times for buyers who purchase several items via Buy It Now. stubenkram asks about options for adjusting shipping costs during the sales process and whether it makes sense to disable "instant payment." perfect-sally notes that this feature has not worked properly in the past and recommends refunds for overpaid shipping costs. petersmodellbahnstuebchen suggests using the shopping cart to ensure correct calculation and points out that the "Buy It Now" function traditionally means "pay immediately." stubenkram describes their experience as a buyer with this function.
Hello everyone!
I unfortunately can no longer find the relevant topics here, but it has already been mentioned several times that there are difficulties with shipping costs that are charged and paid twice or multiple times if a buyer purchases several items via Buy It Now or several items in auctions with a price suggestion.
If several of these items can be shipped together, the buyer naturally assumes that they only have to pay the postage once, and the shipping costs paid multiple times then have to be refunded in some way.
Now I saw in the sales form that the setting "immediate payment" for Buy It Now items can also be deactivated. Would it then be possible to send the buyer an invoice for the total amount with adjusted shipping costs?
Or is it not recommended to deactivate this setting?
perfect-sally
·1 month agoHello @stubenkram in the past it was the case that, despite "Instant Payment" being deactivated, it didn’t work properly. So far there’s also been no feedback on whether it was fixed, and to be honest I don’t really believe it either.
Whether a seller wants to enable it or not is entirely up to the seller, and I also don’t know whether this can curb any non-payments.
For any combined shipping, of course, that’s counterproductive, but there’s still the partial refund of shipping costs paid in excess to accommodate the buyer.
stubenkram
OP1 month agoThanks for your reply, @perfect-sally
It's a shame that this probably doesn't work simply and smoothly. For sellers, it means more work, and it probably has to be explained to buyers quite often how the process works and that it's due to eBay's system and not the seller.
I can imagine that there are many buyers who initially react pretty annoyed because of shipping costs being charged multiple times, or later let that factor into their reviews, even when they have received an explanation from the seller and a refund.
That said, as a buyer, I would message the seller beforehand if I planned to buy two or three items in quick succession. I would ask about the shipping costs and then know how the seller handles it.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·1 month agoHi @stubenkram
Buy It Now has meant immediate payment on Ebay for a long time already, unfortunately.
I always recommend to my buyers that they first use the cart and then request the total amount. That way combined shipping still works, luckily, even automatically, as stored in my system settings.
Best wishes from the Baltic Sea
Peter
stubenkram
OPAug 10, 2026 at 6:40 AMThanks for the info, Peter!
I use this feature quite often these days as a buyer. I'm not sure, but I think I've already seen on some listings that an item I'm just buying is already in another buyer's cart. Since I almost only buy old and antique items that the seller has only one of, are those then probably items that haven't yet been paid for by the other interested buyers?
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·Aug 10, 2026 at 10:42 AMHi @stubenkram
Yes, the items are "only" in the shopping cart, so they haven't been bought yet and haven't been paid for yet.
Best regards from the Baltic Sea
Peter