Payment and Feedback on eBay
Payment
Payments for eBay transactions are carried out between the buyer and seller; the winner forms a legal contract with the seller, so the buyer cannot simply decide not to pay for the item after winning the auction.
The buyer is required to either send payment by cheque, bank transfer, cash on delivery, or through electronic payment systems; though not all sellers will accept all payment methods.
The main form of electronic payment on eBay is PayPal, which allows you to make and receive payments using a credit or debit card for a small fee. This is probably the most common form of payment on eBay as it is safer and quicker than most others; and it also allows easy international payments.
PayPal example:
A buyer wishes to pay the seller of an item £40.
The buyer registers with PayPal, and uses his credit card to add £40 (plus a small transaction fee) to his PayPal account, which he then sends to the seller as payment for the item.
The seller receives £40 in their PayPal account, which they can then use for their own payments, or withdraw (minus small withdrawal fee) to their bank account or card.
As eBay own PayPal they are very keen on you using it, although two other forms of electronic payment are also commonly available; Fastpay and Nochex, but these are UK only.
Feedback
To protect users from bad payers and sellers, eBay operates a system of feedback; after each transaction the buyer and seller can leave either a positive, negative or neutral comment for the other person.
This allows you to see how many purchases and sales a user has made, and look at their past feedback to determine whether they are likely to be trustworthy.
Your total feedback goes up by one for each person who leaves positive feedback, and down by one for each person who leaves negative feedback. So if you have 10 positive feedbacks and 1 negative, your feedback score will be 9 from a total of 11 transactions. A neutral feedback does not affect your score.
For example:
eBay name: MusicSeller28 Feedback Score: 1
Item Number: 1234567890 Positive: Paid on time.
Item Number: 1234567891 Positive: Good to deal with
Item Number: 1234567892 Negative: Took too long to pay
As your feedback remains visible, you need to make sure that you provide buyers (or sellers) with good, quick service; post items as soon as they have paid, and pay for your items quickly. Running an eBay business with negative feedback will be almost impossible, as people will not want to bid on items sold by someone who appears untrustworthy.
Article index:
3. Payment
4. How Can an eBay Business Help You?
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