Are you turning too many buyers away?

As Christmas nears and the silly season for sales approaches it’s time to review your Buyer Requirements on eBay. We’ve all had the customer we’d rather not, and eBay have given us the tools to prevent them from buying.

Some obvious options are to block buyers who are registered in countries that you don’t ship to (though even they may temporarily be in another country and wish to buy locally), and buyers with a net negative feedback score or multiple recent unpaid item strikes may be undesirable customers.

Many eBay sellers have chosen to set a maximum number of items a buyer can purchase to prevent someone emptying their entire inventory. In the run up to Christmas it’s worth considering relaxing this restriction a little as people may be buying larger quantities than usual.

Definately with eBay running TV advertising and new buyers coming to the site preventing new eBayers from buying before they register a credit card or open a PayPal account could be losing business to competitors who have less stringent requirements.

A review of buyer requirements could be worth a look, and if you’ve never set any before now is probably a great time to consider doing so! One thing many eBayers forget or are unaware of is that you can track how many buyers are blocked by the requirements you set. This is a handy tool as it gives a guide if you are blocking too many people and which restriction is preventing them from buying. Don’t forget if you have certain customers you don’t wish to block even though they fall foul of your normal restrictions you can exempt them from the blocks either direct from the buyer requirements activity log or on the Buyer/Bidder management page.

A quick change of your settings now could make a difference to your Christmas sales!