This is the second time I have used the "Order more from  member" button, and this is the second time the books have come from different members.  What is the point of having the button if the system reverts to FIFO and orders it from a different member?   I don't see how that saves the member any money. 

I think the idea is great.  The execution is a bit lacking, though.

How can one get around this when they wish to order more than one book from a member?

Lately, instead of "order more from member" I've been getting "other books members have ordered while ordering this book"

Perhaps that is what happened?

I don't think so.  I wanted a particular book (Which is a whole nother story)  so I ordered it.  I got the page to complete the order and the "Order more from member" button was on it, along with the whole song and dance about saving the other member money.   At this point, I had not ordered the first book.  I went to the member's bookshelf, found a second book and added it to the list.  I then had a list of two books on the right hand side of the bookshelf page.  I clicked on it and it took me back to the order page, which now had both books listed.  I clicked to order them.

In a very short time, I got an email from Paperbackswap that the first book had been mailed.  I went to my account and found that the second book was ordered from a different member.

This has happened to me too. Probably what is happening is you have come across an inactive member, and your request(s) went to the next in line for the book(s) you ordered. If this is the case, you are doing 1 good public service - weeding out inactive members.

It does save money to ship  more books, but I find I would rather send only 1 or 2 - when you get to 3, wrapping starts to be an issue, and 4 or more is better in a box!

Jeanne, you have to make sure that you are ordering directly from that person's shelf.  What happens sometimes is that people will click on the "Order more from member" button, which takes them to that person's shelf, but then they click on the description of a book and order it from there, which puts the order to FIFO instead of the original person's shelf that you were looking at.  If you look at a book description, you need to make sure that you click the Back button to go back to their shelf to place the order.

I've ordered a second book more than once.  More than once they've timed out and I ended up getting the books from different members.  That doesn't sound like what you've experienced though.

Lesley is probably right.  I haven't done that.

The member is obviously not inactive, as she sent the first book within a couple of hours of getting the request! 

Lesley, you may be right.  I know I looked at the description of the book, but I am not sure if I ordered it from there or from her bookshelf.  However, it did list the book, along with the first book, on her bookshelf.  Which makes me think it did not take me to the proper bookshelf.  I should have gotten one that says "Add", not "Order".  I got there through the "Order more from member", though. 

It's just one of those wonky things about this site, I guess.  It took me months to figure out how find my Box of Books pending orders without having to save the original email notification and clicking from there.  It's not exactly obvious.

It's possible that she declined the 2nd book order because she couldnt' find it or it was damaged. It would then order from the 1st person from FIFO. It would not send you an email if she didn't accept the request-it would just pass it on to the next person.  When you bulk order from someone they have to accept each individual book seperately. 

I haave found that if I think I want to order another book from that member, it's best to wait until you get the opportunity to PM them about doing so.  Some members print and mail immediately which means you can't order more from them and they lose out.  So I wait until it's on my page with a PM button and then send them a PM about ordering more from their bookshelf.  It's saved me some hassles. Also I've learned to wait a couple of days at least to print just in case someone wants to order more from me.  Once it's printed the order is complete.

Ruth

I've had this exact thing happen to me too. I know I was on the members bookshelf as the other two books I ordered were on the right hand side of the screen where it shows what you have chosen to order from the other member. Everything was fine and dandy throughout the final confirmation. My two other selections appeared on the list with the other books I ordered from her. Or so I thought. Two of the books I ordered showed up on her page and two didn't. They ended up coming from two other people. They were absolutely ordered from her. I chalked it up to a bug in the system.

I have experimented and found that you should get a bookshelf page that says "Add" and not "Order".   The one that says "Add" will NOT have the original book you ordered listed.  You add the books you want and they are then listed on the right side.  Since I did not actually order more books, I don't guarantee this will work, but I am sure if you don't have the "Add" page, it will not work.

The most likely cause, if the books were in the listing with the first book ordered, is that the other member cancelled the book.

The best thing to do when ordering more from the member is to hit the PM button on the book request as soon as you are done entering it. You can confirm that the book is ordered from the correct person by doing that. Then sending a PM to the from the order letting them know you have ordered more lets them know that they have more to package together and PMing from the book order gets rid of the 1 hr buyer'-remorse period so that they see the addtional orders right away and don't package the first one before seeing the other orders.