Customers ordering multiple times and PayPal Fees.

[Deleted User]

Hello,
I like to keep the store user friendly, but I had an order today, or multiple orders in reality, and the cost of the PayPal fees outweighed the cost of the parts. And I still have to pay shipping and Brick Owl fees. I have very politely contacted the buyer, hopefully very carefully not offended them, because education is important than abuse! But I wonder how many times this happens to other stores and whether a warning message is an option for these situations prior to allowing them to add to the existing order.
I have no solution because my terms provide a loop hole for this sort of thing to occur, but do I really need to punish my customers, and stop them adding items to an existing order because occasionally a person is unknowingly causing harm?
Do our customers need to fear ordering in case we get upset because of the fees?
Or is there a method to educate, without offence, and losing the sales?
Or should I simply hope this sort of thing happens only occasionally?

Castle.

Hoddie

Change your order combining settings here:

https://www.brickowl.com/mystore/settings/order_settings

You can disallow customers from adding to orders, or set an 'order combining fee' to ensure your additional costs are met (I've set mine to €0.50 for example).

BrickGenie

There is an option to charge a fee for every additional order. I use this to offset extra payment costs.

[Deleted User]

Hello,
I was hoping to avoid charging fees, because I hate to punish a customers who add significantly to an order...I guess I best just alter my terms and conditions to advise buyers that it can create a problem....
Castle.

Randyipp

You can't set no minimum on your store then complain when you lose money. I have a minimum for just over break even, so that way people who only need a few parts are happy and there's no total loss sales. You are going to have to choose to lose customers who only need a a couple of parts or your money, for me it was a simple choice. I'm not selling to make massive profits but I have no intention of throwing money away. I also added the order combining fee to cover the PayPal $.30 fee for this reason. Not meaning to be harsh, just the reality of the situation.

Randy

[Deleted User]

Hello Randyipp,
I understand where everyone is coming from. But I prefer service support than hitting them with a fee straight away.

I was not complaining, but more putting some feelers out on how people handle the situation. I hate confronting customers in case the message comes across wrong. It is my fault and I assured the customer that I had "allowed" them to add the multiple orders to the shipment.
The client had no idea they was doing anything wrong, and certainly had no intention of causing me harm. They even offered to pay the fees so it is not about the money.

It is more about education, hitting a person's pocket only drives them away unless they understand what they are paying for. And hitting them with a fee could have generated the resentment, when they had no idea what it was for...I expect they would assume it was a service fee for the store, rather than a fee to cover PayPal fees. And I would expect them to be some what offended when they were providing extra custom, - I know I would be!

I have added a few lines to my store site to advise buyers of the issue, and hope they read it, it is good there is an option for a fee for additional items to a shipment, but again what happens when a large order comes through and they want a few more items...I could understand customer resentment when they get hit with a fee after putting a generous payment for an existing shipment.

Just looking to balance small and large, repeat customer and new ones. They all need some TLC to be loyal so hitting them with fees is not the answer I think, though I respect people who use the option as I am frustrated with the shipment profit, or lack of.

Castle

Juniper22

I've ordered many items from multiple stores across BrickOwl but not sure if I have bought from you. However, I think you have a good instinct not to immediately 'hit' buyers with extra fees if you want to build up your buyer portfolio. I would certainly appreciate this from any seller. I'm also tired of having to deal with quite a few sellers who like to 'mansplain' things! Yes, I'm an older female that does like to build Batman, Star Wars sets and the Viking ships, plus the marvellous ship sets of POTC. I like Lego; isn't that why we are all here. I shall be looking through your store shortly as you sound like the kind of seller I can deal with :-]

Pretty_Pieces

You could add the order combining fee, with a note saying that you will happily refund it if the addition is of greater than $x.xx value. That way the worse that happens is that you cover your paypal per-transaction fee and only donate parts to customer service, rather than cash.
And you are going on my favorite list, too!
Dawn
Pretty_Pieces

DadsAfol

After 10,000+ orders, and hundreds of add-on orders, we've never received a single complaint or question about the $.30 order addition fee. So don't worry about the effect on your customer service reputation.

leopard37

I agree with Dadsafol, customers understand that an extra cost is incurred. I have had questions, but never a complaint on the extra fee for combining orders, most of the time they are quite happy to not have pay for shipping twice.

Tyson

robernat

As a sidenote: the combined fee is not displayed as a 'fee', it is displayed as an additional shippingcost on top of the initial shippingcost, so the perception/effect on buyers side is probably of very low impact, particulary as the 'add' might even trigger a higher shippingcost (so both would be combined within the added cost for the additional order).