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Please help :( Everything is going wrong..

 
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mississippi-queen-54



Posts: 4

PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:53 pm    Post subject: Please help :( Everything is going wrong.. Reply with quote

I just joined eCrater, opened a store & spent a month filling it up..
I have 758 items now in my store..

Been a seller on ebay for 20+ years & never thought I'd run into so many issues on here... but I have Sad

Starting with setting up the shipping matrix..
I chose 3 different shipping methods initially..
Priority (calculated)
1st class for weights under 13 OZ.
Media Mail for books & DVDs

I was so excited when I made my very 1st sale within the 1st 2 weeks..
2 glass corked wine bottles (empty of course)

The buyer paid but chose Media Mail for shipping.
I assumed the matrix would have calculated Priority & never dreamed it was actually giving the buyer a choice..

I had to refund the buyer & remove all but the Priority shipping from the matrix. Buyer repurchased & all was good..
I now have to go through everything because there are so many things that can ship 1st class & so many things that can not..

Then today I had a buyer purchase a plate & actually purchased 3 plates & paid Priority shipping on 3 plates..
What a nightmare. I contacted her & explained I only had 1 plate.

She still wanted the 1 plate but I had to adjust the shipping & give her a refund for the other 2 plates...

She said it said I had 8 of this plate... "8"

Then I get yet another purchase for a pair of slippers from someone in Cal.
Now to be clear, when I listed these, I checked the "free shipping" as I have on many many things...

When I received the email of the sale, it showed the price of the slippers AND shipping for 2 LBS. Priority...

I even went back & double checked & I certainly did have it checked as free shipping...

The buyer has not paid yet but I did email them about this..

What am I doing wrong?

I have so many items that have free shipping..
I even had a ton of items that on ebay, I was charging a flat rate shipping on & many with free shipping...

I just don't know what to do now, especially on the hundreds of items I have with free shipping..

I have an awful feeling I'm going to have to edit every single item one at a time, which will now take me weeks to do..

Should I "hide" my store for now??

Please, any help or ideas would be so much appreciated & TIA..

MQ
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am sorry. I had a very long reply written and I got timed out and lot it all. I don't have time to redo it all now, but will try to answer you later. Yes, you need to stay on hold as you have lots of problems to fix.
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator


Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2018 7:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

First of all, welcome to the eCRATER community. Second, take a deep breath and note you are on a totally different site. I'll try to answer your questions and get you headed in the right direction.

I took a really quick look at your store. I looked at your collectible category because I thought those would probably be items where you would only have a quantity one item per listing. Every listing I saw said you had more than 10 available. When you list an item on eCRATER, you must indicate the quantity you have available. If you leave the quantity blank, the computer assumes you have an unlimited quantity. This is great if you are offering a download and really have an unlimited quantity, but if you only have 1 item you MUST tell the system your quantity is 1. I didn't look at other categories, but you probably have the same error on all of your listings.

Everything else you mentioned is related to shipping on eCRATER. There are two major shipping systems available to US sellers, the eCRATER shipping system which includes Free Shipping, Flat Rate Shipping stated on the item page and the Weight Matrix OR the USPS Calculated Shipping system. If you look in your admin under Account > Options and scroll down to the check box for USPS Calculated Shipping you'll notice it says "instead". In other words, you can use the options listed on the item page OR use the USPS Calculated shipping instead. The USPS Calculated Shipping is a storewide option. If you select this option, it is selected for every item in your store. Every domestic service you select will be offered for every item with one exception. If you select First-Class Package it will only be offered when the total weight is 13 ozs or less. You can not select media mail or Priority Small Flat Rate Envelope or any other domestic service unless every item in your store can be sent with that method. If you use USPS Calculated Shipping and want to show the item as post paid, you will need to show the weight as 0.00. It will not say Free Shipping on the item page, but the shipping will show as 0.00 when the customer checks the shipping estimate.

If you use the eCRATER shipping system, then you can select Free Shipping, or enter the Flat Rate of shipping per item, or use the weight matrix. The checkout system will ALWAYS check to see if Free Shipping is selected, then check for Flat Rate and if both are blank, then the system will check the weight matrix. The weight matrix works great for some sellers, but when you sell the variety that you carry, you're probably going to want to use the USPS Calculated Shipping.

If you use the USPS Calculated Shipping, you still need the eCrater shipping system as a backup in those rare cases when the USPS website is slow and doesn't return the information in a timely manner or if there is a glitch in the API system. You also need the backup so a shipping amount will be shown for your item in Google Shopping.

Personally, I prefer the USPS Calculated Shipping so I can take advantage of the zone shipping. I live in north FL so there is a great difference in shipping between here and the west coast. Plus, you must remember your items will stay listed on eCRATER until they either sell or you remove them from your store. With the USPS Calculated Shipping I know the rates will stay current when USPS changes their rates. The weight matrix is easier to change compared to changing each item, but it doesn't allow for priority shipping zones.

I hope this answers some of your questions. You'll probably have more questions as you work through the shipping. If so, we'll try to help.
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mississippi-queen-54



Posts: 4

PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:28 am    Post subject: Thank you sooo much.. Reply with quote

OK, as for the "quantity" oh my... I never noticed that & that was my own fault..

I now have to go through every listing to make sure the quantity is noted as "1" only..

Like I said, it will take me weeks to get this mess straightened out..
I wish eCrater had a bulk edit feature like ebay has Sad

As for the shipping matrix issue, I'm still so confused but I think I understand the "free shipping" thing... I think..

To be clear on that, I need to set the weight at 0.00?
I'm going to start with the quantity first and as I come upon the "free shipping" items, I'll change the weights to 0, if that is what you explained...

As for the rest, many of my items on ebay (mostly clothing) was set at a flat rate but when I had to remove the 1st class & MM from my matrix, it left only Priority.
This is where I'm confused..

As for MM, I won't be using that anytime soon. I haven't listed any books yet & my DVDs can ship 1st class & most are free shipping anyway...

So, going to start with the quantities & if I understand correctly, the "free shipping" items need to be 0 weight, yes?

Thank you so much for helping. I'll be re-reading your post over & over again until I get it down pat Smile

MQ
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mississippi-queen-54



Posts: 4

PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 3:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you moonwishes Smile

You got that right..

It's 5:30 AM. I'm up, made a cup of coffee & am starting to fix things..

I did put my entire store on hold so I can fix this hot mess..

The buyer of the slippers I mentioned in my original post, finally did get back to me..

She tried to pay with her credit card through Paypal (the full price with the shipping added) and it wouldn't go through on Paypal's end..
She tried several times & just gave up...

Even after I emailed her about the shipping error & sent her an invoice from Paypal...
All she said was to cancel the order & that she hated Paypal :0

So I lost a sale only because of Paypal & not because of the shipping issue here...

Anyway, I thank you both so very much & hope I can get this mess straightened out as fast as I possibly can...

I will definately be back here if I run into any snags I don't quite understand...

Wish me luck Smile

MQ
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ArtistsUnion



Posts: 114

PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome and good luck!

Bravo, dear Sheila, for so detailed and helpful post!
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mississippi-queen-54



Posts: 4

PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

thank you thank you thank you...

Well, it was not as bad as I thought it would be..

I spent the whole day editing each & every one of my listings..
I should actually have it all done by tomorrow...

Thought it would take me weeks.. lol days but not weeks..

As soon as I went through the 1st page, it went rather fast..

Something I did notice though, is the "counts"

I only found a few dozen that needed that checked..
Almost all the rest had "1" available already & then it occured to me that most of my items were imported from Ebay & it appears only the new ones I did manually were the ones that were not entered..

Boy do I feel stupid...

I'll finish up the rest tomorrow & get my store back up & running..

Again, thank you all so very much for helping me & it's nice to know I can come here for help in the future & find the answers I need...

I do have one last quick question before I log off...

How do I pay my fees when I sell something?
I like to take care of that as I go along, makes it easier Smile

Thanks again everyone..

MQ
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ArtistsUnion



Posts: 114

PostPosted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
How do I pay my fees when I sell something?

eC info: "You will get 100% of all the sales that you bring to your store. If eCRATER brings you a sale through the main marketplace, we will collect 2.9% marketplace cost. This marketplace cost will not be imposed on shipping and tax or fully refunded/reversed, cancelled or unpaid orders and will only occur for buyers coming from the marketplace."

When is the marketplace cost due?
"If the main marketplace generated sales for you for the past month, an invoice will be generated 15 days after that month ends and you will be notified by email. In some cases when the due amount is higher we may generate the invoice earlier."
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 5:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you do enough promoting of your goods, you may find that you rarely have a fee to pay. I do that a lot so many of my orders are 'freebies'. Unless they fall on the weekend, the bill comes on the 15th or 16th. In the 5 years that we have had these fees, The most I have had to pay is $13.04. So not generally too bad unless you are selling the crown jewels.

Just don't do like I tend to each month. I empty my PP account on a certain schedule, so I will dump all the money into my bank account, and then faster than a speeding bullet my fee comes due! So I wait around for my next PP order so I can pay it. I do realize that I can use my bank account or what not to pay it, but I just hate money going backwards so to speak.
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thelivesandlovesofmaggiethecat



Posts: 10158

PostPosted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mississippi, if you sold on eBay for 20 years you must realize buyers will always blame someone else for something that is their fault. In your case the slipper buyer's CC probably failed and she blamed PP.

eCRATER does have a bulk editor. Not sure if you can cancel various shipping methods or not. I have a store that is a total mess shipping wise and it is huge. Unfortunately for the past year it is the store where I sell the most. I have 5 here. Last week I lost $10 on one package because my shipping is so outdated.
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