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[personal profile] valis2
Being gone for a week usually means I skip an auction. However, with events progressing as they are, I didn't feel we could afford to, so I enlisted Husband to help me with shipping while I was gone.

I am now trying to sort through all of the eBay woe, and package the shipments, and all I can say is, woe.

The customer who made me crazy two weeks ago has done it again, in the same exact manner. She's paid for some stuff and then turned around and bid on new stuff the very next day. Ethically, I don't feel right charging her for two separate packages, and I want to combine them. However, I don't want this to be taken advantage of! On the last shipment, I paid $4 out of my own pocket because it hit the magical Parcel Post weight instead of First Class. (If she had waited, I could have used the Shipping Calculator, which would have given a combined shipping price. Instead, as I usually do, I sent her a second invoice with no shipping, not realizing that the weight was so high.)

So she's done it again, only with much heavier stuff. Damnit! I'm trying to figure out how best to address this with her without sounding nasty, because she's buying a lot and clearly is rather new. But I hate having to rely on my very faulty memory cells to catch these double orders...

Also, the eBay Shipping Calculator, while adequate for most transactions, still cannot seem to charge the correct rate when someone buys things from my eBay store and my auctions. Case in point? Recently it calculated that a shipment would cost $17.36 for First Class. Uh, no. $2.50. And Parcel Post was calculated at $42. *headdesk*

But today's debacle takes the cake. An international buyer (and, yes, I do not say ANYWHERE that I accept international buyers, so this makes me fume) bid on something and won. I apparently didn't notice as I was sending out invoices. So I sent an invoice for the customer--who is in NORWAY, damnit--for $2.17 First Class. Now, normally, when one has an international customer, the invoice prep screen will show a completely blank field and you have to type in an amount. Let me just mention that $2.17 is my default shipping for First Class--if I type something in myself, I always round up to the nearest ten cents. So yes. EBay has just totally screwed me over. The item cost was barely $3. I only just broke even on it. And now I will have to send to a higher-expense country on top of it. I mean, if it were Great Britain it might not be so bad, but this will cost me oodles, I can already tell. So I'm going to get the cost from the PO and send the customer a note, but honestly, they've already paid, and it was my invoice they paid from, so I do not have much of a choice here. *gnashes teeth*

(no subject)

Date: 2008-10-04 08:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tjwritter.livejournal.com
International shipping is the worst! I had to send four copies of Ripple Effect to New Zealand and it almost cost as much as the books--I hate that there is no international equivalent to Media Mail...I felt bad to be sending them a bill with such huge shipping costs, but we can't really eat the costs ourselves...sorts defeats the "raising money for charity" purpose!

Why does the world have to be so big?

(no subject)

Date: 2008-10-04 10:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] valis2.livejournal.com
International shipping makes me crazy! Sometimes it works out all right, but usually it's just a mess. :(

Fortunately in this case, it didn't cost as much as I was afraid of, but still...

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