What's with 7 days to pay? Is this some 'test' that I don't want to be part of?

[rosachs]

This showed up on my "Awaiting Payment" list recently.  I have never seen it before, and I'm not sure I care for the idea.  It -appears- that they buyer had to submit payment details before being allowed to start down this path, but still.... don't I get to say how long I want to wait?  Isn't that what Unpaid Item Assistant is - an automated process to cancel unpaid purchases after X days with eBay's permission?

Buyer wants to shop more?  Huh?

[ittybitnot]

@rosachs 

It is a supposedly a test.  It is presented as an option to "SOME"  buyers so they have an opportunity to combine shipping for auctions.  You, as a seller, don't get to pick/choose which buyers, and you can't turn it off other than basically turning off your default settings here:  

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

Buyer Rules:

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they place a bid.

*Require buyers to provide a payment method before they make an offer.

Click submit or save.

Then you can for sure file the unpaid item cancellation after four days as before. 

Needless to say, these  Buyer Rules (aka Auto-Pay) settings requiring individual payments at full shipping costs was not really popular with buyers.  For instance, should a buyer win six of your penny auctions for $5.00 shipping for each, they are going to pay $30 in shipping alone for six smashed penny coins.   People see the "put up a payment source in order to proceed to bid" and likely just back out of your listings and find a seller who does not require this.

Yes, you might get paid faster, but you are likely getting paid less for lack of participants.  eBay does not tell you how many buyers went to bid and simply left your listings instead.   When this first started a seller could file the unpaid item cancellation after 96 hours anyway, and didn't have to wait a week.  You can try that, or if it doesn't work anymore, you can turn the "Buyer Rules" off.   If you truly don't wish to combine items for a buyer, you can certainly ditch the "auction" format, make everything fixed price with immediate payment required, and if you get more than one sale to the same buyer, keep the extra shipping if that is your goal. 

[rosachs]

Whelp, it's been a couple of months and I haven't seen it again.  Of course, I've only had 3-4 sales in that time, but they say things are bad all over.  Somehow, I don't think this 'feature' was fully thought thru... it definitely puts the seller at a disadvantage, as the sale could still fall thru and now the item's been off the market for a week.  Is there any down-side to the buyer to simply using this new 'feature' to continue playing the same buy-but-don't-pay game?  If seller's don't ship, we get a ding, and collect enough and you get a 'vacation'.  Are there similar rules for buyers, and if so, what are the parameters?

I'm going to check this on all my selling accounts and likely turn it off, just to see if it has any effect on possible sales.  After all, they really can't get much worse.

-Bob.