Adjusting for discounts

[musicmom]

Sometimes I get a request from a buyer who is going to purchase multiple items and wonders if I can do a discount.

Why does this site not have a place that the seller can adjust the amount after the buyer sends an invoice? I sell on two other sites that allow that. I am now going to have to go through the PayPal partial refund or I'm going to have to send an invoice.

Any chance that eCrater might be adding this?

[AtMemoryLane]

From what I understand from others that have been on here much longer than what I have, eCrater USE to do discounts, but no longer does.
I do not think they have any intentions of going back to using them.

I would simply do the refund.

If you want to do refunds on a regular basis, you may want to put it in your about page or faq's. In the end, it is YOUR store and you can manage it anyway you would like. If you want to give a discount to your regular customers, go for it.

Good Luck!

[A-Better-Way]

Giving money back, a customer appreciates more, just say after it shows delivered you will get $x back in your account.
They will observe if you are for real or not, and be pretty satisfied that you said what you will do once they see the cash back

[AtMemoryLane]

Another way of doing it, if you don't want to do a refund - is simply to make up a special listing just for them. On other sites, they use the term "reserving".

So you have a couple of options to manage your store the way you want to. In the end, you will have a customer that is happy; that is really all that counts anyhow.

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

[MaggietheCatsMeows]

If you have not done business with the buyer before they might be reticent to pay the full amount and trust you to refund. I'd ask the buyer to make a list of the items they want, make a reserved for listing with the total including combined shipping. That indicates good faith on your part. Place the individual listings on hold till the buyer has paid in case the deal falls through.

Saying I'll give you the refund after you receive the goods is really bad karma.

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

Maggie, that's why I described the refund as a refund/rebate. Hubby bought a set of 4 tires, advertised as Buy 3, get 1 free. He had to pay for all 4 tires, mail in paperwork, and we got a VISA "rebate" card for the cost of one tire. I bought software from Office Depot advertised for a nice sale price. I had to pay full price, mail in paperwork and received a "rebate" check for the amount of the discount. I didn't like it as well as getting the discount up front, but it is a standard business practice. At least we can issue the refund as soon as the sale is completed.

[tigercreekgifts]

Most buyers don't want to pay full price then wait for a refund after they check out. I use the matrix for shipping which can be set up to automatically give a discounted shipping price if the buyer purchases more than one item, no need for manual adjustments & impatient buyers won't get chased away by having to wait for their discount.

As for discount like doing a 20% off promotion, buy one get one free, or get $3.00 of a $30.00 order, you can't do that here. A manual adjustment would be necessary for that. If you refund via Paypal they charge you a fee for that so if you give your buyer $2.00 back, Paypal charges you like $2.20 and the additional 20 cents comes out of your Paypal balance or your bank acct.

[SheilaDeesPostcards]

Rose, the OP was asking about a discount when the customer bought a number of items. Her store mix of products doesn't allow for a shipping discount. She wasn't asking for a discount for everyone, just a discount to one customer. (I use the shipping matrix to give a quantity discount for 2 of my stores, but it doesn't work for my other stores.)

It was my understanding that PayPal does NOT charge for a refund. IF you refund 100% of a sale, then they keep the 30 cents transaction fee they originally charged if you are in the U.S.

[A-Better-Way]

"Saying I'll give you the refund after you receive the goods is really bad karma."

I think it's a good thing, they would have blab about that, "they even refunded me as they said they would do"

A discount is just the run of the mill blah blah blah and never heard of again.

[musicmom]

I sell on another site that does have a way to edit the total on the invoice.

Oh well, here is what the buyer did - they did an invoice and paid - I calculated the postage and a discount for the books and then sent them a refund. Of course I did email them first to tell them what was going on. They had chosen the wrong postage type - way too small so I did have to take that into consideration when I did the refund.

If this buyer was not a piano teacher and helped me to clear out a huge amount of books, I would not have done it at all. So, we are both happy.



Thanks

PS I have notify checked but I don't ever get a notify when a reply is posted. Why?

[MoonwishesStore]

Technically if you a do a 'reserved for so and so' I would think that would be against ecraters rule of you must ship to all 50 states although I have seen that with other venues.

I see you have individual rates for your shipping. Do you have things set to combine shipping for multiple purchases? As far as I'm concerned, that is my discount to the customer. Once they buy 5-6 items there is no further shipping charge for additional purchases even if they buy 100 items. They get the same shipping as when buying 6. If you do something like this, then you can state that you give a customer discount via the savings on shipping and handling.

Of course, whether or not you give any kind of discount or refund is your own business, BUT it isn't like you are charging astronomical prices from what I looked at. On some of your items after the fees from PP and possibly marktplace ones, you are barely making anything. So it sure would depend on what you are selling whether I would give a discount or not.

I see that you have handled it with the buyer, but I think the confusing thing is the terminology you are using. A buyer should never be the one making up an invoice, that should be the seller's responsibility if they are asked to do something different, which means you will also get the shipping correct. A seller sends an inovice and the buyer pays it.

I've had others ask me for a discount saying other sellers 'always' give her such and such a discount like buy 2 get one free. My feeling on that is go back to that seller. How many people walk into Sears and tell the cashier, I can get this at the flea market for a lower prcie so you should give me that price as well. I don't know why things that would not be done in person, people are bold enough to do on line. Probably because it is so anonymous.

[tigercreekgifts]

Wasn't sure what the exact amount was, been a while since I refunded anyone but Paypal always charged me the refund fee unless it was like $1.50 or under to give a quick discount but if I refunded 1/4th, 1 half, or more they charged me. Didn't used to when I had PP Micro payments but a while back my acct. suddenly stopped being micro & switched to normal. Now they charge me full price if I make a tiny sale under $5.00 & they never used to. Maybe it's because I list items with higher prices now & have had more high profit sales?

[tigercreekgifts]

I thought the OP meant a shipping discount for buying multiple items because not too many buyers ask for a discount just because they're buying more than one thing, unless they're at the flea market. I sell online so I can charge more for my quality items. I only bring exactly what people want to the flea market. They expect all my items to cost $1.00 or less so that's what I give them. $1.00 or less items that are pure dollar store crap quality.

[cosmicray]