A few months ago I decided to attempt selling on eBay as a means to generate income and not just as a hobby. Eventually, I opened up an Anet Computers eBay store. However, I noticed quickly that I was having numerous eBay buyers that were not paying after winning an auction style listing or a buy it now with best offer item.
Buy it now best offer listings do not require a buyer to make an immediate payment, if both the buyer and seller agree on a price. This fact of eBayers not paying right away was a bit perplexing to me. Initially, I would manually open up an unpaid item case in eBay’s resolution center.
I started receiving quite a few items not being paid for days after these customers bought an item from me. I wanted to see if I could speed up this process or some how stop this from occurring entirely. Luckily, eBay has an automated unpaid item assistant tool.
In your eBay account you will want to browse to “Site Preferences” and then choose “Selling Preferences”. You then click on “Show” and then “Edit” to enable this unpaid item assistant tool. You can choose anywhere from two to thirty two days when a case will automatically become opened.
Also, automated eBay unpaid item emails can be delivered for both when a case is opened and or closed. I decided to enable unpaid item assistant with a two day threshold. Now, when a buyer on eBay does not pay me within two days of an auction or buy it now best offer, then a case gets opened automatically.
That buyer now has up to four days to pay for an item. If they do not pay within four days, then an unpaid item gets recorded on their account. Sellers can then refuse to accept bids from and give offers to eBayers with unpaid items on their account.
Once a case gets closed then all ebay fees are refunded. There is one thirty cent fee from PayPal that does not get refunded. That is a transaction fee that PayPal charges.
From my understanding each buyer that does not pay costs me 30 cents which is not refundable. I have noticed that some buyers decide to pay once an unpaid item case is opened. However, I have had four total buyers refuse to pay in just a few months of having unpaid item assistant enabled.
You can read over eBay’s official unpaid item policy. Do you want to hear me explain how I deal with negligent buyers on eBay? You can watch the eBay unpaid item case video from the Anet Computers YouTube channel embedded above.
I no longer sell physical items that I keep in inventory on eBay. Not only are unpaid items from buyers an occurring problem, so are fraudulant disputes by buyers that ebay approves. Now I only sell drop shipping items on eBay, which requires an immediate payment.