eBay are continuing work that they started in 2021 to reduce unpaid items on eBay, which they know has been a long-standing bug bear for sellers. For fixed price items, buying without paying is already a thing of the past, but eBay are now extending this work to the few transactions that aren’t automatically paid when the purchase is made.
In October 2021, eBay piloted a new process for collecting payment from a buyer automatically following acceptance of their offer. To do this eBay asked the buyer for payment and shipping details in the Best Offer flows. Starting in April, eBay plan to expand our coverage and include more buyers, which should further reduce unpaid items from buyer offers.
By mid-year eBay will also start collecting payment details in other Best Offer scenarios, including counter offers and Offers to buyers. These changes will be applied automatically for buyers, so you don’t need to update or make changes to your listings.
We’re listening to our seller community, and we’re on a journey to make things better for you. Managing payments for our users places eBay in a better position to collect payment for buyer commitments.
– eBay
While unpaid items will be reduced even further with today’s news, there may still be instances where a buyer doesn’t pay. If an item is unpaid, you should continue to cancel the order just as you do today. eBay recently streamlined the unpaid item process and moved it to the cancel flow, where you can specify your preference and whether you want unpaid items to be cancelled after four days.
