Invoicing: Is there a way for the buyer to REQUEST the final invoice before making payment?

Is there a way for the buyer to REQUEST the final invoice before making payment?

This would allow the seller to adjust the postage and handling.
On the 'other' buyer/seller site, you know the one in CA by the water, invoicing is made/adjusted by the seller before the buyer makes payment.

Thanks all!

Clyde

Comments

  • 24 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • By default, sales are not completed unless payment is made. This helps to significantly reduce the number of sales which are unpaid for. However, as a Seller, if you want to allow buyers to checkout without completing payment, you can do so using our Pay Later feature. This feature allows you to pre-approve specific buyers to checkout with you without completing payment. You can then adjust the invoice, etc. before payment is completed.

    For more information see: https://support.hipecommerce.com/portal/kb/articles/pay-later-by-check-or-money-order
  • Thank you Mark!
    Like usual ~ Outstanding Guy!
    Warmest Regards,
    Clyde
  • I have 5 invoices from one seller, how can I combine them? The seller does not respond to the request. I want to combine everything together and not pay for shipping every 2-3 items. Oleg.
  • Any items you win through the auctions or the offer feature, which need to be paid after you've won the items, are automatically combined within 5 days. If you make additional purchases after 5 days they will not be automatically combined. The Seller has the option of doing so but is not required to if the items were won more than 5 days apart.
  • why can't I do it, just the seller? 5 days is a very short time, before the Hip on stampwants such problems were not.
  • I have a problem with combining shipping. I don't see where I can do it. The buyer sees an invoice for 2 extra stamps he bought, over 5 days apart, but I don't see anything showing the last 2 items. I only show the 1 invoice for the 5 days old stuff. The newer items he bought are still listed in my store. How do I add the new items in manually or edit the invoice?
  • no one helps here, I no one answered. emptiness, not helpers.
  • Oleg, scroll to the bottom of this page and click on Contact us and open a ticket. The staff will reply to your situation.

    James, I don't know how your buyer got an invoice and you are still seeing the items in your store. Something is not right. And as far as I know, they only time we can edit the invoice is when we have the buyer on a pay later program.
  • Well, the buyer decided to go ahead and pay, I finally got an invoice so I see that the items have been sold. He went ahead and paid with the xtra shipping and I will refund him from Paypal. So I guess it works out. This was all done while I was taking a nap, should do this more often!
    There should be an easy way to handle this, though. Back in the day you could just let someone take a week or more to pile things up and invoice when he or she signals that they are done.
  • I agree. I think that 5 days is too short a time period. I would double it to 10 days.
  • I am also not satisfied with the accumulation of 5 days, the seller agrees to wait even a month, but the system does not combine orders, why not make it possible for sellers to combine multiple orders with a long term, what is the benefit of this from Hip?
  • Just to clarify, as the Seller, you can do this. If a buyer has any unpaid invoices with you, you can combine them over any time period, by clicking on the "Combine Invoices" button next to any unpaid order for the buyer in question. The 5 day period only applies to when multiple unpaid invoices are automatically combined.

    Outside of auctions and offers, if as the Seller, you want to allow buyers to make purchases of store items, and pay at a time in the future (not at checkout), use the Pay Later feature: https://support.hipecommerce.com/portal/kb/articles/pay-later-by-check-or-money-order
  • Mark,

    I asked a question of your support staff last week through the "Contact Us" feature that was related to this, but never received a response. The question was, "When combining invoices for Buyers over a period of time, I have noticed that the 8% fee on the shipping charges are not refunded when the invoices are combined. Will these accumulating fees on the shipping charges that no longer apply be refunded by HipStamp if I manually tally these fees and submit them to HipStamp for a refund? The Buyers have been Pre-Approved for payment and are periodically purchasing items from my store."

    Your support staff did confirm that the 8% fee on the shipping charge will not be automatically refunded when two invoices are combined when a buyer is purchasing items from my store (no auctions involved).

    Richard Pauls (okstamps)
    https://www.hipstamp.com/store/okstamps
  • A warning to all sellers who approve buyers for pre-approved payment.

    I only have store sales, no auctions.

    If you have any buyers who have been pre-approved for payment, one of the options that appears on the drop-down list on the top right corner of the invoice is "Combine Invoices". Using this feature, two or more invoices from the same buyer can be combined into one invoice. This would be a great feature for buyers who want to purchase items from a seller but want to combine orders over time so that the shipping charge isn't too large of a percentage of the total price (the shipping charge is adjusted when the combination occurs). By making a number of smaller purchases and having them combined, the buyer wouldn't have to worry about another buyer purchasing items they may have in their shopping cart.

    The problem with combining two or more invoices in this manner is that the fee on the shipping charge on each invoice is not refunded. My present shipping fee to Canada is $10.00 per order. At 8%, the HipStamp fee on this shipping charge is $0.80. If my Canadian customer who is pre-approved for payment combines two orders, there would be an $0.80 fee on the shipping charge from each order, with the HipStamp fee one of those two shipping charges not refunded even though the customer would only see one shipping charge of $10.00 for the combined orders. So if this customer finds only one new item listed at $0.10 that he wishes to purchase and does so and then has me combine orders, I will end up paying a whole lot more in fees to HipStamp than what I will collect on the sale ($0.10 sale but $0.81 in HipStamp fees).

    I presently have two customers, both pre-approved from payment, who are combining invoices of purchases from my HipStamp store. For my United States customer, I am being charged $0.10 for the shipping charge on each order ($1.25 shipping charge for first 50 items). For my Canadian customer, I am being charged $0.80 for the shipping charge on each order ($10.00 shipping charge for unlimited items). I will probably lose the person in Canada as a customer because he does not wish to pay the $10.00 shipping fee on smaller orders.

    The only option I can see to hopefully maintain these two buyers as customers is to provide them with a sufficiently large enough selection of material so that they can find enough items they desire to make the shipping charge palatable when they look at the total cost of the order. I will do so by only listing items once every one to two months. I should be able to provide 1500-2000 new items during such a time frame, with all of these items listed at one time. If these new items are limited to only a couple of countries or territories and letting them know when to expect the new listings to appear, hopefully I can maintain them as customers.

    Richard Pauls (okstamps)
    https://www.hipstamp.com/store/okstamps
  • As an additional note, none of what I discussed above is covered in the link that Mark provided three comments above.
  • Richard, go to Account History. Change filter to "Credits". You should see a refund for combined invoices. There is no info other than a $ amount credited - the sale ID# or Invoice # are no longer available to view but you should to able to tell by the date. Another way is to make a note of the invoice/sale ID #'s before you combine.
  • Jeri,

    I did as you said. No credits related to the combined invoices.

    I previously sent a question to the HipStamp support staff about this. They replied, in no uncertain terms, that if store invoices are manually combined for buyers who have been approved for later payment (Pre-Approved Buyers) that although the shipping charge to the buyer is adjusted that the seller will be liable for all fees charged for the shipping charge on each invoice. No refunds of the fees on the shipping charges will occur automatically. No refund will be given for the fees charged on any shipping charges if a request is made for the support staff to do so.

    The following is the reply I received to my question:


    "Hi Richard,

    If items are automatically combined, we will refund the fees automatically on order and we will charge fees on the combined order.

    If a seller manually combines an order, shipping is combined but we do not refund fees for the difference in the shipping costs. For example, if shipping on one order is $2 and the shipping on the second order is $2 and you combine the orders and the new shipping cost is $2 instead of $4, we would still charge fees on the $4 not the combined $2.

    I hope this helps clarify. I was mistaken earlier.

    Best Regards,
    Justin Beard
    Hip eCommerce"
  • edited December 2018 2 LikesVote Down
    Very interesting and I get the reasoning behind this - REALLY??? I've got other accounting issues with this site but best to just leave it be.

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Richard.
  • Olleg......do as I do in Ebay I contact the seller NOT to invoice me because of having more items on my watchlist. You can also just add them to your cart without paying for them right way.
  • Yes, in the past, on Ebay, I used to make sure to ask whether a seller combines shipping because I got stung a couple of times. I always check that here and I have seen a few instances where a seller doesn't mention it. That's generally harder to do I think, here, because of the way you have to make a listing in the first place. Still, it would be nice to be able to provide this info on the main page you get when you first click on a listing to view it. I don't know if that would make much difference though.
    I would also think that if somebody has several hundred feedbacks that someone would have told them about the multiple shipping issue - unless the buyer made purchases from say 100 different sellers, each for only 1 item, over a period of six months.. But as an electronics instructor once said, "don't assume".
    I did a little snooping and see where this buyer purchased items from another seller last night a few hours apart. I wonder if he paid shipping twice for those also.
    I wonder if I should just flat-out ask him directly. I don't like being rude, especially to someone who buys something from me, unless I have to I did mention to him that paying for a purchase immediately would generate two shipping fees. Maybe he knew and wanted to buy the second item anyway?
  • If we as sellers would have the option, for buyers to request invoice, it will be nice and the correct shipping cost be invoiced.

    As I remember the option was used/available in the old days .."BidStart"
  • I am with you Peter. This would be the 'ticket'. I like the 'request invoice' idea.
    -Clyde
  • James.... in Ebay if I'm interested in more than 1 item I ALWAYS contact the seller to see if they combine shipping. 99% usually will. Why they don't put it in their ad is a mystery to me. When I sell I always combine and make that known in my ad. If it's sheets I combine for .25 per auction won. Singles and plates extra get shipped free. Don't think it rude to ask. That way you don't get burned for a ton of money for shipping. In my estimation it costs no more to ship multiple items.
  • edited January 2019 0 LikesVote Down
    Mark...."This helps to significantly reduce the number of sales which are unpaid for" !!!!

    If sellers not have unpaid issues, let us have the option... to request invoice.
    I offer Pay-Later but it do not solve the issue, if buyer buy several items at once and check out.
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