Checkout does not check out

eBay UK sellers should be aware – if they’re not already – that Checkout is not calculating postage for multiple purchases correctly. I first became aware of this around a week ago when a buyer demanded to know why I was charging her double my stated postage cost. Over the course of the next few complaints, it seemed that buyers of more than one item from the same BIN or SIF listing were charged the “first” postage price again, rather than the “additional item” charge.

Numerous threads on eBay boards revealed that I was not alone: it seems that a fair few of us have spent most of the week sending out revised invoices, refunding overpaid postage, and getting accused of postage profiteering. However annoying that might be, it could be worse; other sellers are finding their buyers are being *under*charged. Julianne from Toy Town Express had a customer charged just £2 instead of £9.50: she said “it doesn’t even cover first class, and they want a courier delivery!”

The latest word from eBay is not hopeful for a quick fix:

As you are probably aware, this is currently a site issue at the moment. Our technical engineers are still working hard to resolve this issue but at present there is no further updates available regarding this problem.

7 Responses on "Checkout does not check out"

1. 1
   Randy Smythe says:

   February 28, 2007 at 5:55 pm

   Glitches like this are happening more frequently then ever before. I place the blame solely on the new CTO who came over to eBay from Wal-Mart. eBay seems to develop its applications on the fly.

   The damage done from a seemingly simple glitch can put major financial pressure on a small business. eBay, in my view, should spend some of that $3 billion in cash they have in the bank on fixing the problems with the eBay platform.
2. 2
   TameBay : A bad day at the office says:

   March 1, 2007 at 8:55 pm

   [...] eBay seem to have far too much broken at the moment: checkout still isn’t combining multiple item’s postage correctly; PayPal still don’t know what time zone they’re in, neither does dealfinder; Links in the PayPal user agreement still link to dead outdated pages (I reported the one for the commercial entity agreement over two years ago and they still haven’t fixed it!). [...]
3. 3
   TameBay : Checkout problems are getting worse says:

   March 14, 2007 at 8:17 pm

   [...] With the previous problems with combined postage still not fixed, and Pinks confessing that the fault has been “more challenging to fix than first envisaged”, it seems that this one will be costing sellers both time and money for a while yet. [...]
4. 4
   TameBay : eBay make multiple sales more attractive says:

   March 22, 2007 at 10:57 pm

   [...] It’s great to see eBay making radical changes to the checkout flow which should not only increase multiple sales but also provide sellers with more ammunition to market upselling discounts to their customers. Hopefully the changes once fully rolled out will fix (and are the explanation for!) the huge checkout problems from the last month. [...]
5. 5
   TameBay : My eBay’s missing payments says:

   March 26, 2007 at 8:06 pm

   [...] eBay’s site melt down got a step worse today, as communication between sellers’ records on eBay, and Paypal, broke down. The problem began some time over the weekend, as items with cleared Paypal payments were showing either as “payment pending”, or not showing as sold at all in both SMP and My eBay. For once, eBay have put out an annoucement about the problem, confirming they’re aware of the issue and are working to resolve it. Let’s hope it’s sorted a little more quickly than the still-ongoing problem with Checkout’s postage prices, but in the meantime, sellers should cross-check their eBay sales against what’s in their Paypal account to avoid missing payments. [...]
6. 6
   TameBay : In case you hadn’t noticed, eBay is broken… says:

   March 28, 2007 at 4:36 pm

   [...] How long ago was it we first noticed that Checkout wasn’t working properly? I blogged it a month ago, but I know I spent a good few days before that wondering if it was me, or my buyers. I know, at this point, you’re hoping I’m going to say it’s fixed, aren’t you? Ooh, you little optimist! It ain’t fixed yet. But at least they made an annoucement about it. So that should reassure the buyers who think I’m trying to get rich by “ripping them off” a quid at a time on their postage. [...]
7. 7
   We haven’t forgotten you! : TameBay says:

   July 17, 2007 at 10:58 am

   [...] That’s the message from eBay today to sellers and buyers still affected by checkout not applying discounts. [...]