My Very First Ebay Listing

AgCoinAu, yea ebay sends message and also if used PayPal will deduct the fees in your "account". If you're a first time seller like me, message said my remaining funds would be held for 21 days or until had 10 completed sales and favorable comments. Glad I'm not paying too much on shipping and selling a bunch or I'd have some cash flow problems. You shouldn't have that trouble if you had 20 completed sales, should only take a few days?

Terms that protect you from rogue buyers since a large number of them abuse the "buyer protection program" and the CLAIMS process.

A lot also depends on what kinds of items you're selling. If you're selling stuff that's more than say $20. then you're probably using postal methods which include tracking. In ebay's eyes, once a package is received by the buyer (regardless of whether or not the contents are received and/or in tact), the seller can't be held at fault... When cases are opened, ebay will look to the tracking of a package to make judgment... very dumb in my opinion as there's no way to tell if a person actually sent the items they said they did. This part of the buyer protection program actually hurts the buyers more than the sellers as the buyer is the one who is assumed guilty.

Conversely, on packages sent without tracking, ebay assumes that the seller is automatically guilty if the buyer did not receive their item... If the buyer files a claim, ebay will almost always say the buyer is guilty... regardless of the fact that the seller did nothing wrong and has an excellent track record. For example, the other 499 people did business with this person had no problem receiving their item.

The most important thing is to put terms that will cover you in your individual circumstance. For instance, all of my items advise I have a "no claims policy" and that "late fees" are charged for slow payers, and administrative fees" are charged to those who violate my terms. I also put in there that by buying my item, the buyer has entered a "legal and binding contract" with me. Legalese usually scares off the rogue buyers.

ebay actually states in their "terms and conditions of a listing" section the following:



It's basically telling you to be sure you're good with the seller's terms before you buy something from them... this is how you get around the claims process.

Charging late fees through ebay is actually very simple. You simply send a revised invoice with a note indicating that you've added a late fee to the original total. The one buyer who did get assessed a 10% late fee from me had no problem paying the new invoice as he knew he had agreed to those terms when purchasing my item.

ebay doesn't protect sellers who do a lot of volume on low value items (i.e.: items without postal tracking), so this is really the only feasible way I can protect myself. And in fact, you do enter a legally binding contract with the buyer according to ebay's purchase conditions policy as outlined below:



As for your fears about me "scaring away" potential buyers, I haven't skipped a beat. My monthly sales are averaging twice what they were before I implemented my terms and conditions last November... Also, I've noticed a 70% dropoff in the number of "lowball" offers I get. So the "right" people are getting scared off - and that's a GREAT thing!