SIMPLE DELIVERY - inability to combine postage means I'm having to refund buyers from sales!

[spirograph]

This 'Simple Delivery' scheme is driving me bonkers. I have no option but to use this scheme, but it really doesn't work when it comes to buyers buying mulitple items (in auctions). I list postage as  'large letter up to 1kg' (which is the next stage up from 100g 'small letter' - which a standard A4 envelope with stiffener & protection just exceeds), and this triggers £2.74 postage fees. However this week, a buyer who bought over 50 items in my auctions was charged a phonomenal amount for postages, FAR above and beyond the actual cost. I could've almost put the items in a taxi for them to be delivered for less than Ebay's charged for multiple postages!! What Ebay's A.I. doesn't seem to factor in (and I suspect only human intervention would overcome this), is that additional items doesn't necessarily equal additional postage fees. I would've previously been able to invoice this buyer by just editing the 50 x postage amounts, into one single MUCH lower figure which represented the cost of the actual size/weight of the package. 

In order to retain buyers and keep them happy, I've now had to resort to refunding the postage that they paid from my sale proceeds where the Ebay 'simple delivery' postage charges are extortionate.

Anyone able to offer advice, or point me in the direction of how to 'lobby' Ebay for the option to return to allowing buyers to offer sellers the ability to combine postage?

After all, it wasn't long ago that Ebay would condemn sellers who 'profited' from postage fees....now here they are seemingly doing it themselves!

[**peaseblossom**]

I know, it's a pain.   eBay say they're working on it but like all the other problems with SD it seems to be taking forever to sort out. 

A temporary fix is to put a note on your listings that any buyers wanting to buy more that one lot should let you know first.   Then you can relist those items into one listing with one postage cost.

For anyone going ahead and buying separately you cancel/refund the transactions with the buyer's agreement and relist with items on one listing and a single postage cost for the buyer to buy and pay again.   If the buyer won them in auctions relist as Buy It Now at the winning bid price.

@spirograph 

[spirograph]

Thank you.
As all my listings are auctions, the 'let me know first' isn't a feasible
option.
Ebay themselves suggested the 'work-around' of cancelling all the auction
bids, re-listing them as a buy-it-now item etc. This has worked with those
buyers who know/trust me, but it does almost understandably appear a bit
'dodgy' to buyers who aren't known to me. Furthermore there's also the
outside chance (and I realise this is unlikely but nevertheless possible)
of another buyer getting to the buy-it-now item before the 'bidder' it was
intended for. In light of that, I tend to keep the buy-it-now listing a bit
vague - which again works ok for buyers known to me, but not those for whom
it's a first time suggestion. As a seller of integrity, even I can quite
understand how suggesting to a buyer who uses Ebay primarily for auction
bids, that I cancel the bids and list a buy-it-now 'single' item for
multiple wins would appear to 'stink' of a potential scam! It's making me
appear unprofessional as a seller, to have to suggest a concocted
work-around. Particularly tiresome because it's for something over which
I've absolutely no control since the mandatory implementation of 'Simple
Delivery' for private sellers.
It reallly ought not to be for the sellers to have to deal with this.
Sellers have always had the option to invoice buyers for postage, and Ebay
have removed this, but without apparently thinking through the issues of
multiple purchases/wins by the same buyer.

[spirograph]

Thank you!

As all my listings are auctions, the 'let me know first' isn't a feasible option.

Ebay themselves suggested the 'work-around' of cancelling all the auction bids, re-listing them as a buy-it-now item etc. This has worked with those buyers who know/trust me, but it does, understandably appear a bit 'dodgy' to buyers who aren't known to me. Furthermore there's also the outside chance (and I realise this is unlikely but nevertheless possible) of another buyer getting to the buy-it-now item before the 'bidder' it was intended for. In light of that, I tend to keep the buy-it-now listing a bit vague - which again works ok for buyers known to me, but not those for whom it's a first time suggestion. As a seller of integrity, even I can quite understand how suggesting to a buyer who uses Ebay primarily for auction bids, that I cancel the bids and list a vaguely described buy-it-now 'single' item for multiple wins would appear to 'stink' of a potential scam! It's making me appear unprofessional as a seller, to have to suggest a concocted work-around. Particularly tiresome because it's for something over which I've absolutely no control since the mandatory implementation of 'Simple Delivery' for private sellers removes the option to combine purchases/postage.

It really ought not to be for the sellers to have to deal with this. Sellers have always had the option to invoice buyers for postage, and Ebay have removed this, but without apparently thinking through the issues of multiple purchases/wins by the same buyer.