Non paying buyers on best offer
These non paying buyers are getting ridiculous. They offer a “best offer†and then never pay. It has happened with my last 5 “sales†because eBay does nothing about it. Payment information should be required and instantly charged upon the sellers accepting said offers. Otherwise we are losing watchers and wasting time on items that could have made a sale. Surely I’m not the only seller that’s getting tired of this!!!! Anyone else having this problem and getting tired of it?
16 comments
dhbookds
·3 years agoOne strategy is to decline the offer with the message that you will lower the price on the listing to their offer and will leave it at that price for 24/48 hr. (whatever) time......that way they have to buy it and the immediate payment requirement kicks in......... assuming you have it enabled.
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agoThere are probably some buyers out there that simply make offers like the sport bidders do when bidding on auctions never having had any intention of paying even when they made the offer or won the auctioun. If you want to eliminate the non-payer problem simply list the items as BIN with IPR and no OBO. There are some potential consequences of doing this such as cancel order requests, increased returns....
I use the auction format almost exclusively for a variety of reasons and I get the occasional non-payer but I just accept it for what it is in the current eBay environment, block the bidder, relist the item and move on.
diecastorbust
·3 years agoI have nothing on here anymore there are many reasons one being fees going up and now to be any where near cooperative promotions are in 10% and higher but prices can’t be raised to accomidate. Another major factor I noticed I would get offers on Thursday’s and come Monday no payment I can relist but my item Was off the market for the entire weekend and sold great it just seemed tooo much like a coincidence like my item was purposefully Bering taken off the market can I prove it no but every Thursday l like clock work 5-6 accepted offers 4-5 non paying bidders. And lastly when I first started I did 16k my first month tell me how in the ensuing year I never broke 3k in A month now ebay gets alll the garbage that doesn’t sell else where tbat could care less how much it sellls for tax write offfs
soh.maryl
·3 years agoMay we assume that you're either (a) opening UPI cases routinely every time a buyer has not paid in four days or (b) have set your buyer requirements so that an NPB case is automatically opened at that point.
And also that your buyer requirements are set so that any buyer with two UPI cases in twelve months will be unable to buy from you.
mam98031
·3 years agoThere are no UPI cases anymore. The process is much simpler now that ever before. If you have a non paying buyer. 96 hours and one minute after they purchased the item/s, you can file for a Cancellation using the reason the buyer did not pay and you are done with that transaction. Free to relist the item and sell it to someone else.
soh.maryl
·3 years agoYes, I was aware of that. Thank you.
scandinavian_bulk
·3 years agoI have had a lot of problems with this. And this had helped me in the past.
1. Send a message to the buyer that send the offer and tell him/her that you are about to accept his offer and just wanted to check if the address is up to date or something else. If they don't answer just don't accept.
2. If you send the offer and they accept it. Or if you get the offer during the night time or when you were not online for several hours you still might want to accept without messageing the buyer with the offer first. Then accept the offer and after that write a message with some standard phrase like "Hello. Thank you for your purchase. Your order is about to be packed and shipped. Pls let me know if there are any questions".
If they don't answer and don't pay in 24 hours. Send an invoice with a question if the offer was a mistake. If they don't answer that and still don't pay I usually cancel the order within 12 hours and relist it.
But yeah it is a waste of time if you lose alot of watchers. On the other hand I rather have the buyer change there mind erly then after I shipped an item that they dont want. Then they might start a dispute to return the item for such and such reasons.
soh.maryl
·3 years agoUnless your listing is FP, IPR, any buyer has 96 hours to pay.
If/when you send another invoice, it resets the timeline, giving the buyer more time to pay.
Just wanted to make sure you are aware of these things.
scandinavian_bulk
·3 years agoNo I was not. Thanx for the info.
mam98031
·3 years agoIPR is not always the answer. For sellers where buyers tend to buy multiple items, this will discourage them sometimes from doing that or they will purchase them one by one, which increases your fees. So each seller has to decide what is best for them and what they sell.
Speaking for myself. I only run GTC listings [good til cancelled] but none of them have IPR. I have very few non paying buyers. But I still get buyers of multiple items, they too pay.
So the answer can be different to the problem depending on the seller. There is no one size fits all answer.
soh.maryl
·3 years agoOP's complaint was about people making offers, then not paying.
My suggestions were relevant to that scenario.
mam98031
·3 years agoI understand what you were trying to do. The problem with that is that a UPI claim no longer exist. You can't file one. No seller can. It is now the simple Cancellation process after 96 hours from the purchase.
femmefan1946
·3 years agoBut yeah it is a waste of time if you lose alot of watchers.
I disagree.
Watchers watch.
Viewers view.
Since a Fixed Price item can be purchased immediately, every View is a person who decided not to buy.
femmefan1946
·3 years agoOne improvement has been the shorter Unpaid Items period.
We used to have to wait 96 hours to open a UID, manually, then another 96 hours before we could close it.
Now we can set an automatic Unpaid Item Cancellation for 96 hours and one second, and the deadbeat still gets a Strike.
And of course, any seller can set automatic Blocks on deadbeats with as few as two Strikes in the past 12 months.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·3 years agoI used to never have non-payers. I think I had 1 non-payer in 15 months time (1500+ items sold). Now I've had a few the past 2-3 weeks and looks like another one is about to not pay.
I agree with Mam on strict buyer policy, but I also am left with the opinion that a non payer pays sometimes, and maybe I rather risk them not paying to get that potential sale? Hmm. I can suck it up once in a while it's just annoying to have several in less than a month. Also helps that I don't run auctions. I feel a non payer on auction would be worse. Unfair to other bidders and more time consuming/frustrating for seller?
Funny story though... I sent out a discount offer. Buyer accepted. Buyer didn't pay. Cancelled that sale (didn't block buyer). Few days later buyer came in and purchased full price. Buyer even left a positive feedback. I ended up w/ sale, higher price & (+) FB. 🤷â€â™‚ï¸ Win-Win-Win
mam98031
·3 years agoThis is a very frustrating thing. Many buyers feel the same way you did. There is however light at the end of the tunnel. Ebay is currently testing having buyers supply a payment method when they submit a best offer. If the seller accepts the best offer, the seller is paid right away.
While some buyers in the test are complaining about it, sellers love it. It is something we have asked for many times. So hang in there, it will get better in a few months.
As to currently, I will go over your best option. If this is something you are already aware of, hopefully it will help someone else.
First make sure your Site Preferences for your Buyer requirements are the strictest possible for non payers. And that would be 2 strikes in the past 12 months.
Then every time you have a non payer, 96 hours and 1 minute after their purchase, file a Cancellation with the reason the buyer did not pay. That puts a strike on their account.
If they do it again, that makes two and every seller they try to bid or buy something from, they will be block and they will get a message on their screen that they can't purchase from that seller.
This is a GREAT tool for sellers. We just need more sellers to follow the steps. Buyers will learn.