Additional eBay Stealth fee? Clarification needed please!

[brickdragon]

I offer a 'Buy one - get one at 10%' off discount on nearly all the items in my store.

This discount is very popular and several buyers will buy 2 or more  items from my store at the same time.

However, whilst customers benefit from the discount when they purchase 2 items at the same time, eBay are charging me a final Value fee of 30p plus VAT on EACH item even though they've been purchased together as one order and the multiple purchase discount has been applied

Also, when this happens, all the items in the order  have a different order number even though they've been purchased together, benefited from the multiple purchase discount,  and are being posted to the same address.

This is a random issue and doesn't seem to be happening to all multiple purchase orders but has happened multiple times over the last few months and the final value fees have racked up as a result.

Can anyone clarify why this happens?

Is it a glitch or is there a valid reason for this? 

Thanks in advance for your help!

[jonatjonatjonat]

Are the orders it occurs on either international GSP orders or click and collect?

[brickdragon]

No, I rarely sell via GSP and the orders in question are not click and collect either.

I've noticed the odd anomaly where a customer has purchased 2 items and accidentally chose home address delivery for one item and click and collect for another which generates 2 separate orders which I can understand but the orders I'm currently reviewing are ones where the final value fee has been charged to each item even though they have been purchased together, are being sent to the same address, and the customer has received a multi-buy discount.

[storage.boutique]

I havent seen the different order number issue before, might be worth asking seller support.

The multi buyer discount allows you to send multiple items in one parcel, thus saving you rather a lot of money off the mainly fixed postage fee. On that basis, you should calculate your discount. You are correct, a FVF is applied to each item. This is not a stealth tax as it has always been thus. It is well worth offering the discount however as you will see a marked increase in your sales. eBay customers are particularly price elastic weheras those buying through Prime are not. Horses for courses!

[brickdragon]

Thanks for your reply.

I intend to contact seller support next week to query. I thought I'd mention it on the forum first to see if anyone else has noticed the same problem.

My issue is that the final value fee application is completely inconsistent in multiple purchases. Sometimes the items in a multiple purchase are grouped together with a single FVF but on other occasions each item is classed as a separate order with its own FVF even though they have been purchased together.

Could just be a glitch but hopefully seller support may be able to shed some light on it