eBay

teenytrinkets · ‎08-31-2018

I've been a casual seller for years and never really had issues with many non-paying bidders. I've had the odd one here and there, and they usually message me to tell me they've changed their mind, and we just cancel the transaction.

Strangely enough, the last 3 items I've sold ALL had non-paying bidders, and they're all MIA. No response to invoice on day 2. No response to reminder on day 4. And then no response to filing for non-payment. WTH is going on? Just coincidence, or bad timing being summer and the week before a long weekend?

They were all best-offer deals. I think sometimes buyers lowball me, and then are shocked when I accept their offer, and then are like, "Ooops, now what? I actually have to pay for this thing?".

I know there are ways I can curb this by asking for immediate payment, but almost all my auctions are best offer, and I find it works best for my sales (especially when I am offering free shipping - I can see where I am shipping to before I accept).

Any suggestions about what I can do? Beef up my auction wording perhaps ("buyers must pay within 2 days of an accepted offer").

And will ebay actually do anything about these guys that don't even respond to me? I see it documented that they get a 'strike' but sellers can't even see that - and most sellers don't even care, do they?

luckythewinner · ‎08-31-2018

@teenytrinketswrote:

They were all best-offer deals. I think sometimes buyers lowball me, and then are shocked when I accept their offer, and then are like, "Ooops, now what? I actually have to pay for this thing?".

LOL.

What they really thought was "Maybe I'm overpaying, and should have offered less!"

teenytrinkets · ‎08-31-2018

Oh - I've had people contact me later and say, "I really only need ONE of the items in that THREE item lot, can I pay one third of my accepted offer?". And there have been other varations of that. I'm pretty tolerant with people that change their mind, want something different, or messed up somehow. And I have had successful transactions with these types of people, because they're nice and willing to communicate to work it out.

What gets me going is when buyers completely ignore me. And these are buyers with good and stable looking records on ebay. I have no idea what's up lately. Maybe back-to-school expenses have people second-guessing their ebay spends. Who knows!? I hope it's a blip!

castlemagicmemories · ‎08-31-2018

IF you are accepting offers that turn into no pays, you can revise the listing to reflect the offer price you accepted. Then the onus is on the buyer to actually do something to bid or buy it now.

pburn · ‎08-31-2018

I just took a shot at making a "Best Offer" for the first time a couple of days ago. The seller didn't respond, so the offer expired.

I sometimes wonder, though, if buyers think if THEY don't respond, their offer expires? It's not the most straight-forward process. Sellers can "ignore" the offer and it expires, but buyers are obligated to buy. I don't know--I get it, but I think it's kind of confusing. I think my understanding was arrived at by reading these discussion boards. I'm not sure I would have totally understood it if I hadn't read threads about the process . . .

Just my thoughts.

teenytrinkets · ‎08-31-2018

Sure - and this has happened to me before - but my buyer usually responds to the invoice that is sent to them saying they won the item!

All 3 of my bidders this week have ignored the invoice, the ebay reminder, my reminder AND the case for non paying bidder.

I had to go to my paypal account and make sure everything was still working. LOL! It's like when you're waiting for someone to call, and you pick up the phone to make sure there's still a dial tone. HELLO!!!??? ANYONE THERE???!!

flukeman43 · ‎09-05-2018

I have been selling on ebay for over 15 years or more. I find that the rate of non paying bidders is increasing at a rapid rate. I can now have one or more a week as opposed to say one a month. I have to take the extra time to go thru the motions of filing NPB and then relists. In addition I have to keep a list of the sale cost and expenses since eBay still carries those sales in my figures that get reported thru Paypal to the IRS and I need to deduct them myself when I do my taxes. All around a waste of my f'ing time. Also let us not forget that we can no longer post negative feedback and warn fellow sellers about them. I think it is time that ebay forces them to make the sale if they have 50 feedback or less, sort of like posting a bond in good faith. There is really nothing us sellers can do because it is not always the new 0 feedback buyer who screws us, sometimes it is a seasoned buyer with say 75 feedback. There is no rhyme or reason but it has become very rude when you send message after message and there is no reply. I think ebay should cover the exact sale price back to us as an inconvenience fee.

the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth · ‎09-05-2018

Don't put threats in your listings. It turns good buyers away.

Do you have your bidder blocks set to block anyone with more than one UID in the last year?

There's nothing you can do other than filing and closing your UIDs. Choosing a tool like Best Offer has consequences. You can't get the increased sales that you talk about without risking increased nonpaying bidders. The two go hand in hand. So only you can tell when the nonpaying negatives outweigh the Best Offer positives.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎09-05-2018

@flukeman43 wrote:
.... In addition I have to keep a list of the sale cost and expenses since eBay still carries those sales in my figures that get reported thru Paypal to the IRS and I need to deduct them myself when I do my taxes. ....

I'm pretty sure that PayPal doesn't report on payments that weren't received.

@flukeman43 wrote:
... I have to take the extra time to go thru the motions of filing NPB and then relists.....

You can avoid part of that task by setting up the automatic unpaid item assistant. I wish it had an option to automatically relist the item when the case is closed.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎09-05-2018

@teenytrinkets wrote: ... will ebay actually do anything about these guys that don't even respond to me? I see it documented that they get a 'strike' but sellers can't even see that - and most sellers don't even care, do they?

Most sellers set up their Site preferences to automatically block bidders who have goten two strikes in the past year.