Can a Buyer put a mix in their basket?

Shop Talk
1

Can a buyer put a mix of items from different shops into their basket and pay just once at the checkout?
Just had a sale fall through as buyer wanted to buy 2 items from different shops and said they were asked to pay for each item individually. Is this normal?
Trying to get some answers to her as she wants to try again tomorrow.

2

Not 100% sure but I think you have to pay each seller individually.

3

Just found this on Buyers FAQs

Can I buy more than one thing at once?

Yes. You can add them all to your cart and checkout in one go, but you’ll need to pay for them all separately if they are from different shops.

Can I buy something from more than one seller?

Yes, you can add items to your cart from several different designers, when you get to checkout you will be asked to confirm your total order and then to pay each designer individually using Paypal.

4

Yes, that’s correct. You have to pay each shop separately - I’m sure that’s part of the reason some buyers drop out at checkout.

5

Thanks for the reply Roz and Christine, does seem a rather drawn out process :frowning:

6

I didn’t realise this. This seems like a big flaw to me! If someone is say shopping for Christmas and for a range of people they’re unlikely to find everything they want in 1 shop. Say they find even 6 things they want from 6 different shops- that then means they have to go through the whole process 6 times?! Yeah- as a buyer I’d also drop out when I realised that. People don’t have time for that. One of the draws of Internet shopping is it’s fast!

Thanks for mentioning this- didn’t realise.

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7

I think it’s to make sure the right amount of money goes to each payapl account, if it was made in one ‘lump sum’ out of a paypal account/card account then somewhere there has to be a ‘sorting out’ of how much goes to each seller not sure if this would happen at paypal’s end or folksy but it could mean a mix-up somewhere.

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8

I suppose it’s quite hard to manage on a small site - I know the bigger shopping sites do it all in one transaction, but it must take a bit of work. I’m not sure how many buyers here make multiple transactions across more than one shop - I’ve never done it, and have no idea how simple/hard it is to negotiate several transactions through checkout. But it does give more scope for errors/failures to arise.

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9

Have purchased multiple items from one basket on ebay and the transaction goes through as one payment. Not sure which platform is doing the maths on that though.

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10

Hmm it’s a bit of a shame really as it may well put people off. I know it would put me off- especially around the time of Christmas shopping- I have almost 30 people to buy- I don’t like to waste my money and don’t just ‘settle’ for things to buy. The age range I buy for is 3 to 83! So I definitely wouldn’t be able to get a range of things for these people in the same shop.

I’d just never really thought about it on here to be honest. I guess I just assumed- having never bought multiple things myself on Folksy.

May be a way for Folksy to go in the future- but ultimately it would all come down to cost.

I know for example I also sell through Art Finder- but the way they sell is you can buy as many items as you want for as many sellers as you want, and it’s Art Finder that take the money- they then keep it for a few weeks to make sure if anyone wants to return or it’s gone missing for example the money is there to settle it, then they take their commission and bank transfer me what I’m owed. Granted it’s a long drawn out process and not necessarily ideal for the seller- but definitely better for the buyer as it’s a much more sleek operation.

11

I would never sell on a site where the site holds onto my money and expects me to post off the items

It also means the site has the interest on all that money in their bank account and that adds up when it’s from a large number of sellers.

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12

I sell on a couple of sites where they take the order and money. I then make the order and post it and then I get paid a couple of weeks later. I haven’t had any issues at all with this type of arrangement.
I also drop ship to a few other sites where they take the order and money, I make the order and post it and I then invoice them. They then pay a couple of weeks later.

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13

Not until they close down and you never get your money. Why would you risk that from a internet based company?

Also why would you allow them to get even more out of you besides your fee’s in interest payments? The longer your money is in their bank account it gains interest a very big pay off they have loads of other sellers money siting in their bank account.

14

They’re really big internet companies with 1000’s of sellers, and I’ve sold on them for years. I think it’s a pretty good bet that they are not going to close down any time soon.
Their payment terms are in their T&C’s, so I suppose if you don’t like it, you don’t have to join. But I wouldn’t let it put anyone off from selling on a company like this, as it is pretty normal practice.

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15

I find it great. I haven’t had any issues. They’re a huge company- and have been around for years and work for thousands of sellers. I don’t see it as any different from PayPal keeping ahold of my money.
Through the one I sell through for example they take a fair cut in commission- but they work for it. I haven’t been with them long and within the first fortnight I was in one of their emails and sold loads of pieces in that week- internationally and my more expensive pieces as well.
I think they’re too large and well known now for them to mess anyone around.

It’s very different to selling on here or Etsy- you have to apply to sell through them and your photos and descriptions and things have to be up to scratch so there’s a different level of professionalism that I like. Pieces sell on there for hundreds of pounds on a daily basis so it’s obviously working.

I quite like it as I promote Folksy- but with that I don’t need to promote so it just does it’s thing while I focus on my shop here which is quite nice.

I agree with @millyandpip though- if you’re happy with the T’s&C’s I wouldn’t be put off by the way the payment thing works. It’s helped boost my artwork and it’s now selling internationally. :blush:

Realise I’ve ended up deviating from the initial conversation, haha sorry!

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16

How silly is that I thought you could just mix it and pay as one and the good old technology sorted it out. Nice to know now I think if I had to go through the process so many times it would put me off.

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17

This is why some of the sites insist on “free” shipping (i.e. hidden within the item price) so customer buying 10 different items doesn’t see 10 lots of shipping fees. Then it’s comparatively simple for the store to split a single payment across several vendors.

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18

But there is no such thing as ‘Free shipping’ it’s a advertising lie.

19

@littleRamstudio @Rozcraftz @ciesse @curiousseagull

Hello,

The current PayPal API integration we have (the older classic) doesn’t allow for multiple payments to different people in one PayPal transaction. We did - over two years ago - move to a more modern PayPal payments system which did allow this, but there was an outcry amongst sellers as PayPal Postage was not supported in the new API (and we didn’t know it wasn’t as the documentation at the time was poor and postage wasn’t something that we tested when working on the payments system). So we rolled back to the older PayPal payments system. Still with me?

We’ve been working far more closely with PayPal this year and we will be working to integrate their new classic API. We are just waiting for confirmation from PayPal that the PayPal Postage functionality is now supported if we do move. There are a lot of extra benefits to the new classic API - such as authenticating your PayPal account on Folksy as a new / existing seller (lots of people put in an incorrect PayPal address which causes a host of issues).

So, whilst it is very annoying that people buying multiple things from more than one seller (a small minority) have to pay via PayPal for each ‘thing’, we have so far been unable to change, without affecting an (what was a presumably still is) important part of the seller process of managing postage.

We’ll let you know what PayPal say about the postage on the new classic API as soon as we hear back from them.

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20

That sounds promising James, anything that helps with streamlining the purchasing process is always a good idea. Just to mention the sale was saved by communicating with the buyer, she came back yesterday and bought the item :slight_smile:

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