Running your business

[seller_update@ebay]

We understand the frustration of not getting paid after you’ve done everything right. You’ve created a great listing, waited for the right offer, and quickly accepted the Best Offer—only to have the buyer fail to return and pay.

You’ve heard us talk about our commitment to eliminating unpaid items. We’ve been testing different ways to solve this problem, starting with Best Offer listings in the US. The first phase of changes to Best Offer is already live for a significant number of buyers, who now have to provide a payment method up front before submitting an offer.

We’re continuing to fine-tune and expand how we protect you from unpaid items. Our goal is to extend the new experience to all buyers who submit Best Offers, first in the US and later across more eBay markets.

Edit: Please ensure that all questions and comments remain on topic. Any off topic posts will be moved to the appropriate board, so they can be answered by Community Members. 

Please allow us 24-48 hours to provide an answer to your question. 

[trstnadie]

i love the change to provide payment option up front for Offers submitted, it helps solidify confidence in sellers to accept as well.  My question is could this potentially be an upgrade to auctions as well where bidders are providing that payment option up front for bids?

[shipscript]

The "prepaid" offer has worked quite well at reducing scam offers, allowing items to remain listed instead of being locked in a sale when there really isn't one. There has been concern from buyers who wanted to put items in their cart for a single checkout, only to find a credit card had been charged when an offer was accepted. This seems like a difficult challenge with mixed reviews. I know a merchant can place a hold on funds for later processing. Is that an option - giving the buyer 6 hours to complete checkout - or too complicated?

[seller_update@ebay]

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@trstnadie wrote:

i love the change to provide payment option up front for Offers submitted, it helps solidify confidence in sellers to accept as well.  My question is could this potentially be an upgrade to auctions as well where bidders are providing that payment option up front for bids?

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Hello @trstnadie! Thank you for your feedback and we can make sure to have this shared with the correct team. We will continue to look at new features as our marketplace continues to grow and evolve.   

[dmvintageauto009]

I run 99.9% auctions, and non-paying bidders have increased exponentially.

Five years or so ago, out of 1000-1500 "sold" auctions per year, I used to get 2 - 5 NPB a year.  Now, I'm running 2 - 5 NPB every month.

Will eBay be doing anything to try to curb this?

[chhresells]

I am curious as to why when I get the note saying the buyer has provided a payment method and I will get paid immediately if the offer is accepted, it can take a while still before the payment is actually processed? I know on other platforms they seem to be able to immediately process the payment or give me an error saying that the buyer has an issue with their credit card and the item is still available for sale. I know you have a larger sales base and number of sellers, but this has been a promised fix for quite a while and it seems very slow in coming out. 

Thanks

[joyofthehunt]

Is the requirement to provide the method of payment for an accepted offer the same as requiring "immediate payment."  When a seller accepts the offer does it automatically trigger the sale using that payment method?

[vintagemontage]

How about this, you make 3 non paying offers you get your Make  An Offer priviledges suspended for 60 days, you can still buy at the Buy It Now price, but you are not able to make offers, if you continue making non paying offers then, your  Make  An Offer priviledges gets suspended for a full year ans so on and so on. I think that this would work just fine for the sellers and for the buyers. No other website has the option to make an offer as eBay does, it should be a priviledge to be able to make offers. This is my humble opinion..

[valueaddedresource]

seller_update@ebay  during the Spring Seller Update discussion, you said that funds should no longer be pre-authorized or held on offers that require a payment method.

While there was an issue with that occurring several months ago, this should no longer be the case at all. We do not perform pre-authorization holds. A Buyer's card or PayPal account will be charged only if a Seller accepts. If a Buyer has chosen PayPal, there would be a "pending" order on their account but no money is held (regardless of if the funding source was via credit card or checking account).

https://community.ebay.com/t5/2022-Spring-Seller-Update/Question-thread-Expanding-efforts-to-reduce-... 

However, reports kept coming in that people were still seeing preauthorizations. So I asked Velvet about it back in May 2022 and she said:

We aren't pre-authorizing payments for offers. You should not see a charge of any kind unless the seller accepts your offer and at that time, the payment will go through immediately.

If you are seeing otherwise, then I would encourage you to contact Customer Support to get that reported. They'll most likely need the item numbers and screen shots showing where we pre-authorized/held funds for these offers. You can black out account/private info in the screen shots, but the tech team will need to see where we actually held the funds on the offers you made.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/I-got-charged-immediately-for-a-quot-make-an-offer-quot-that-wa... 

And yet, we're still seeing complaints here in the community from buyers who say they are having funds tied up by pre-authorizations due to immediate payment required on offers.

I asked devon@ebay about it back in September but there was never any follow up.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Pre-authorization-charges-are-killing-me/m-p/33240455/highlight...

So is what we were told last year during the update incorrect or is this a technical issue as indicated by Velvet?

If it is a technical issue - why has it been almost a year with no resolution?

[seller_update@ebay]

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@joyofthehunt wrote:

Is the requirement to provide the method of payment for an accepted offer the same as requiring "immediate payment."  When a seller accepts the offer does it automatically trigger the sale using that payment method?

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Hello @joyofthehunt! Now with Best Offers in listings if a seller accept a offer then the  buyer would then be charged with the payment method that they put on file. 

[valueaddedresource]

In the Spring 2022 Seller Update we were told:

Later this year (2022)....We’ll also introduce a new feature that lets buyers request a bundled offer on multiple items. This multi-item offer to buyers can be completed in one transaction. Sellers will be able to issue an offer for multiple items that they sell and then conclude in one transaction.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/2022-Spring-Seller-Update/Question-thread-Expanding-efforts-to-reduce-...

What is the status of that functionality? I notice it is not mentioned in today's update.

What would be the updated timeframe seller's should be looking at for this feature?

[clemsontjs1]

Is there any plans on reducing the number of unpaid items on the Auction platform? As I have multiple unpaid Auction listings a week and it's super frustrating to list a item for a 7 day auctions for it to sell and item isn't payed for inturn having to relist the items for another 7 days with another possibility the Auction winner don't pay.. or atleast have the ability to leave the buyer negative feedback to warn other sellers the buyer has the habit of not paying for auctions won .

I sell in the sneaker category and once the item is payed for messages between buyer and seller is cut off in the past if the buyer had a issue they could reach out and solve it in most cases with the seller now the buyer has no option but to leave negative or neutral feedback when alot of times it could of been resolved by a simple message ..just a couple of my concerns .

[eritech]

Here's a thought: Penalize the buyers who are not paying. If the threat for not paying has no teeth, what is to stop them? Secondly, give sellers the ability to post negative feedback against buyers like this. If buyers have a habit of not paying, it would be nice to warn other sellers of that fact. Lastly, give sellers back the option to refuse sales/offers from buyers with fewer than x number of feedback. Almost every problem I encounter is with buyers with little or no transaction history. Every time I get a purchase from a buyer with little or no feedback, I cringe.

The buyers are the sellers' customers, but the sellers are eBay's customers. Those buyers are a fickle lot, with no real loyalty to the sellers or to eBay. They will go where the deals are. The sellers are the ones taking all the risk and paying your fees. The eBay sellers are the ones that take the initiative to bring products to this market and sell them, yet we are doing so in an environment that is heavily biased in the buyers' favor. I don't want to have to deal with international sales. I don't want to accept returns at a customer's whim. This isn't Amazon.com. I want buyers held to as high a standard as sellers. Do buyers need to be protected against unscrupulous sellers? Absolutely, but sellers need the same protection. There are plenty of buyers out there gaming the system and the sellers with seeming impunity. Level the playing field for us. The feedback issue alone is a huge problem. If sellers cannot leave negative or neutral feedback when it is due, if they are not allowed to air issues they had with a bad buyer, then the feedback system is meaningless.

Return some balance to the system. Right now, it seems like you are waving a stick at the sellers and a carrot at the buyers.

[jeeperz-creeperz]

I stopped using Best Offer years ago yet my biggest complaint is unpaid items from international buyers on items that we do not ship internationally (specified in the listing under the "Shipping, returns & payments" tab. 

The listings used to show where the items shipped to in the little info box under the price/Buy it now box but no longer shows this information so anyone looking at the item can click buy it now only to find out later that we don't ship to their country, and then I have an unpaid item sitting waiting for payment.

The only good side is that eBay no longer charges the fees up front.  I've had days where there's 4 or 5 high dollar items waiting for payment from international buyers.

[racksoffprice]

Why does it keep happening that when a buyer buys 2 or more items and returns 2 or more items ebay doesn't make it clear to ship each item separately  - use tracking to confirm return and this gets buyers mad thinking we are sandbagging their other returned items