First-Time Buyers and Non-Payers.

My husband just left to take my amazing Adelaide to daycare for the first time. It's not the first day of school, but I have convocation for the new school year today and a work day, so I thought it best to start her while I have the freedom to go get her if I have a total breakdown. To keep from bursting into tears (again), I thought I'd use this time to write a post.

First-time buyers are a tricky creature. Since I started eBaying again, I've had to open 7 cases, and five of them have been against someone with 0 feedback. Only one out of those five actually paid for the item after the case was opened. To counter that, I've had some wonderful first time buyers who have paid immediately. I have considered blocking people with 0 feedback from bidding or buying an item, but those few who have been great with paying have made me reconsider.

I have a lot of Littlest Pet Shop animals up right now and someone bid on them last night (yay). I woke up this morning to find a message from them asking if they'd won. Well, there's still two and a half days left. I told them this, and also told them keep an eye on the auction to make sure they don't get outbid and went into great detail explaning how you look at what you've bid on. I have a feeling that if they win, payment's going to be a hassle. But, we were all newbies to eBay once and I know I made some huge mistakes when I first started, so I'm going to keep letting first timers bid on my stuff.

Regardless of who has won, I've had a lot of non-payment lately. Not only that, but they don't pay and then they don't bother to respond to my messages. I wonder how other people deal with it, but here's what I do:

• In my auctions, I always state that payment is due one day after auction end. My BIN requires immediate payment.
• I always send an invoice to them.
• If two days have passed, I will send another invoice and ask them to contact me if there's any problems regarding the payment.
• If three days have passed, I will message them personally and ask them nicely to either pay or contact me.
• After five days, I open a case. Then have four days to pay before I can mark the item "unpaid".

I have found that the lower the item sold for, the more unlikely someone is to pay. It's like they think you won't make it a big deal. I had a girl's dress sell for a measly $.99 (to someone with a lot of feedback, btw) and I would bet you anything they thought I wouldn't make a fuss over it. Well, I did. I'll make as big of a fuss over $.99 and $99.00. It's the principle of the thing.