I noticed recently (last 2-3 weeks) eBay changed their Best Offer checkout process.
Previously the process worked similar to auctions where once the seller accepts your offer, the item would appear in your cart unpaid but representing a commitment for you to pay. You could (with the OK of the seller) keep the item there while you send other best offers, wait for auctions to end, or just mull over BIN listings. Once finished you could request combined shipping from the seller and have the seller update the shipping to a single flat fee in most cases.
Now the process skips the cart altogether and requires the buyer to provide payment and shipping information at the same time as your offer. Once accepted payment is immediately processed, the item skips the cart, and goes directly to your "purchased" page. To me this means two things in a scenario where you'd like to buy 2+ items and one of them is a Best Offer:
1) The only way I see a seller could combine shipping with this process would be issuing individual refunds for shipping on each extra item or one refund on a pricier chip. Not only is it another step for a seller to have to perform but it could give buyers enough hesitation, to have to work through / track this process to ensure correct shipping was charged, avoid best offer listings altogether.
2) It will make tracking multiple purchases from a single buyer much more difficult. The "purchased" page doesn't sort (or at least I haven't noticed) by seller so if you wanted to purchase multiple items over the period of a few days due to auctions or new listings, you'll no longer have all your purchase/buy commitments in one place like you previously did with the cart "commitment" process. This will also make it more difficult/impossible for buyers to hold items that sold via best offer due to shipping requirements on their side. Either they provide a tracking number for the first purchases which locks them into a certain weight or shipping method or they mark them as shipped without tracking. The latter though would then require them to go back later and update the tracking for those first items.
If someone knows a way to be able to get combined/delayed shipping/payment within the new process let me know !
Previously the process worked similar to auctions where once the seller accepts your offer, the item would appear in your cart unpaid but representing a commitment for you to pay. You could (with the OK of the seller) keep the item there while you send other best offers, wait for auctions to end, or just mull over BIN listings. Once finished you could request combined shipping from the seller and have the seller update the shipping to a single flat fee in most cases.
Now the process skips the cart altogether and requires the buyer to provide payment and shipping information at the same time as your offer. Once accepted payment is immediately processed, the item skips the cart, and goes directly to your "purchased" page. To me this means two things in a scenario where you'd like to buy 2+ items and one of them is a Best Offer:
1) The only way I see a seller could combine shipping with this process would be issuing individual refunds for shipping on each extra item or one refund on a pricier chip. Not only is it another step for a seller to have to perform but it could give buyers enough hesitation, to have to work through / track this process to ensure correct shipping was charged, avoid best offer listings altogether.
2) It will make tracking multiple purchases from a single buyer much more difficult. The "purchased" page doesn't sort (or at least I haven't noticed) by seller so if you wanted to purchase multiple items over the period of a few days due to auctions or new listings, you'll no longer have all your purchase/buy commitments in one place like you previously did with the cart "commitment" process. This will also make it more difficult/impossible for buyers to hold items that sold via best offer due to shipping requirements on their side. Either they provide a tracking number for the first purchases which locks them into a certain weight or shipping method or they mark them as shipped without tracking. The latter though would then require them to go back later and update the tracking for those first items.
If someone knows a way to be able to get combined/delayed shipping/payment within the new process let me know !
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