Thanks for asking about that at a business seller's event, and for reporting back. I'm glad that whoever you spoke to gave you a proper response (well, sort of - it was a bit vague and non-committal, but certainly frank).

Could you please clarify what the 5% refers to? As this was a business seller event, did they mean that only 5% of business seller orders include items combined (from separate orders)? Since combined postage is currently practically impossible to achieve for private sellers (I'm not including eBay's very clumsy mechanism of going into the next size/weight band), the figure for combined postage on private sales must be nearer to 1% at present! Or did they indeed mean 5% of private seller orders? I'm sure that, before SD, combined orders for private sellers would have been significantly higher than 5%, but maybe I'm plain wrong, and combined orders pre-SD were not as common as I'd assumed they were.

The claim that they are working on it, but without even an estimate of when it might be functional, leaves me conflicted. On the one hand, it's heartening to hear that they appear to be taking the issue seriously (as they should have from the start), but on the other hand they can be glacial when it comes to fixing and introducing certain things. I read about an issue on the boards yesterday (can't remember what it was, sorry) that eBay stated they would fix about two years ago, yet it has still not been addressed. IIRC, it was not as complicated a matter as combining postage, either (complicated with Simple Delivery, that is - it was a cinch to combine items and charge accordingly before SD).

My other concern would be the amount of potential disruption, chaos and confusion caused by trying to integrate combined shipping into the SD programme; I know it's pessimistic of me, but I can't see that being a smooth and seamless process. This year has been quite the anus horribilis for private sellers (and has probably given eBay some major headaches, too), and we desperately need to feel that things are back on the up, rather than having to endure yet more problems.

Still, it was a far more encouraging reply than "eBay has no plans for the forseeable future to facilitate combined shipping on private sales."

As far as I'm concerned, the return of the ability to combine items (under some system that actually works properly, and does not overcharge the buyer/seller) can't happen a second too soon. Its absence is a major impediment to sales.

Also interesting was that staff member's candid agreement with your (fair) assessment of how the SD rollout was handled. That must have been very off the record, I can't imagine any eBay employee officially stating that the company had screwed up - not if they valued their job!