WINNING BIDDERS WHO DO NOT PAY.

[jsherrili8vjc]

I sell sports cards and do not have lots of sales, but enjoy it as a sports fan. About once a month, someone wins one of  my auctions and does not pay. I send the invoice, wait a few days, send a follow-up, and never hear from them again. I wait until a week has passed and cancel the order, and indicate the reason to be "buyer did not pay"

My question is;. Do they pay any penalty for this?, or is this just a normal thing. Does E-Bay contact them or just let it go?  I thought making a bid here was a contract!!

[12345jamesstamps · Accepted solution]

Absolutely, there is a penalty for not paying. And never combine auctions as one payment unless you know they are going to pay. You can also separate the non-paying auctions from a group. That way the buyer gets a demerit for each auction non-payment. Bidder wasted your time on selling something. Its only natural to return the flavor.

[slippinjimmy]

When you cancel for non-payment the buyer gets a "strike" the strike is not public but eBay tracks it.

In your Buyer Management setting you can block buyers who have 2 or more strikes in the past 12 months. This will help you to avoid buyers who have a history of non-payment.

Your other option is to reduce or eliminate your use of the Auction format, switch to Fixed Price with (or without) Immediate Payment Required Just using Fixed Price will eliminate most of your non-payment issues, adding Immediate Payment will eliminate virtually all non-payment (you would need to drop Best Offer to completely eliminate them).

It look like the majority of your sold Auction listings ended with only 1 bid so that format is not doing you any favors, it may even be costing you sales because many buyers don't want to get involved in bidding with a CHANCE of winner vs a Fixed Price listing where you see, you buy, you pay and it's yours RIGHT NOW.