I wanted to buy three coins from same seller on eBay, so added them to my cart. Went to cart to pay, and there was message in red that order couldn't be processed until owner returned from vacation. Checked back day later, same message. Did search on one of the coins to see if it was available from another seller. One of the coins that appeared was the one in my cart. No surprise; I hadn't bought the coin yet. Just to see what would happen, I clicked buy-it-now expecting same message I got in my cart. Nope! Purchase went through with message there would be a slight delay in shipping. Tried same thing with second coin, and purchase went through. Tried with third coin, but coin was gone! This is probably in eBay fine print. If you have group of items from same seller in your cart and seller is away, order will be held-up until seller returns. I guess they are assuming that you are hoping for a discount on the group of items or shipping that requires a decision by the seller. However, if you do a buy-it-now on the items one at a time, the purchases will go through at stated price and shipping. Not knowing this cost me the chance to buy the third coin at a good price. There should have been a message in my cart stating that if I wanted the items at the listed price and shipping, the order would be processed. Thanks a lot eBay! Cal
eBay's checkout can be tricky at times. You will sometimes see the Buy It Now and Add To Cart buttons within the same listing. Like you said, I think add-to-cart leaves the option for invoicing & adjustments whereas buy-it-now states you are willing to pay right now.
Not "liking" your situation, but thanks for sharing this experience. Sorry that you lost out on the third coin as a result.
@calcol , it may be that the seller also sells off of eBay, say at shows. When he goes to a show with his stock he tells eBay the coins are temporarily not available (so eBay says the seller is "on vacation"). The coins that sell at the show are no longer available when he gets back, so he removes the sold coins from his eBay stock. Maybe your third coin was sold at a show.
Yeah, maybe sold at a show. More likely bought via buy-it-now like I did with the other two coins. Someone beat me to it before I wised-up about how the cart goes on vacation along with sellers. Cal
Take a look at the completed listing, and see whether it says "ended" or "sold". For bonus points, watch and see if anybody leaves feedback for it.
I tried looking and couldn't find it at all in sold listings for the seller. Even more bizarre, the two I bought and paid for don't show up either. Things must be hanging until the seller acknowledges the sales. Cal
Sometimes it takes a while for auction updates to propagate through all eBay's servers, but I wouldn't expect it to take hours. Odd.
