Warning about eBay International Shipping (EIS): No Combined Shipping

airplanenut

I've spent a ton of time on the phone with eBay today and yesterday trying to figure out an issue, and after some more digging today, it seems many other sellers have run into this. In short, if eBay International Shipping is enabled and a buyer wins multiple items, they cannot be combined, nor can you send an invoice to change any settings (such as shipping internationally yourself and not using EIS).

Beyond this, eBay isn't even consistent. A buyer won two coins from me (both Canadian, one in each of the two Canadian 5 cent categories) and one got sent down the EIS path and the other looks like a regular international sale. I can send an invoice and modify the shipping options at will for the latter, and I can't do anything for the former. It's a huge mess. I decided to give EIS a go not that long ago, and boy am I regretting it now. I've turned it off on my account and will go back to always handling international shipments on my own, as I've been doing for the last two decades or so.

If you want to disable EIS (or make sure you already did) the setting is on this page: https://www.ebay.com/ship/prf (or navigate to it by hovering over your name in the top left corner of eBay.com, clicking Account Settings, then Shipping Preferences in the bottom left column under the bold Selling header).

neildrobertson

I ran into this issue a couple months ago after EIS went live. Listings I created before EIS went live couldn't be combined with listings created after I opted into the program. That problem is presumably solved because I went back and edited all of my listings.

I've been preferring the protection EIS gives for international sales. I've lost a few items going to China and elsewhere in Asia over the years, and I've often suspected it could be because I messed up the address or the formatting of the address and the different characters, etc. With EIS, it automatically uses an address as the customer entered it themselves, so it takes me out of the loop as a source of error.

EIS costs ~$2 more than the alternative. I'm still making up my mind whether I think the extra $2 is worth it.

SimonW

I do like the protection it provides, haven’t had the problem you describe though.

airplanenut

@neildrobertson said:
I ran into this issue a couple months ago after EIS went live. Listings I created before EIS went live couldn't be combined with listings created after I opted into the program. That problem is presumably solved because I went back and edited all of my listings.

The issue I had was with two coins created from identical templates on the same day, which ended minutes apart. The only difference was which of the two Canadian 5 cent categories was used. One was set to EIS and I couldn't do anything with invoicing it, and the other was like a normal international order without EIS, where I handle everything and ship directly to the buyer's actual address.

deepblue30

There is a bigger issue with the EIS if you are listing in the USA, the system excludes international sales to Australia and in some cases doesn't display the listing. Some of the seller that I have purchased from in the past their items are no long available to buyers international. I have tried to explain this to many sellers who use this EIS to list items. I guess when they start to lose sales they will go back to the old manual listing and us collectors overseas will be able to buy again.

jdmern

It is exponentially more difficult to sell internationally on eBay than it was a few years ago- for many reasons.

jt88

I used to turn off EIS in the past but now since eBay will cover the return and lost so it sounds very attractive. I decided to give it a try but so far I haven't sold one use eBay international shipping.