eBay extend Buyer Requirements to block more non-paying bidders
21/05/2008 at 20:43
eBay have been promising for a while now to enhance buyer management blocks to give sellers a little more control over who bids on or buys their items, and today, buyer requirements have finally been updated. Sign in to My eBay > My Account > Site Preferences > Buyer Requirements, and sellers can choose to block buyers with 2-5 unpaid item strikes over the last 1, 6 or 12 months.
I like that this has been extended beyond the old “2 Unpaid Item strikes in the last 30 days”, but at the same time, I don’t want to block too many buyers: I can think of reasons why buyers might legitimately have two unpaid item strikes over the course of a year. I’m going to steer a middle ground for now and choose 3 unpaid item strikes over 6 months. And I’ll be keeping an eye on my buyer requirements activity log to check if too many buyers are being stopped because of this requirement.
How about you?
Chris Dawson says
8:50 pm on 21/05/2008
I’m going for 2 strikes in 6 months, on the grounds I hardly get any blocked by this requirement anyway
My most effective block (thankfully!) is blocking buyers from countries I don’t ship to.
northumbrian says
10:05 pm on 21/05/2008
its the maximum for me, if they have had 2 non paying bidder strikes in the last 12 months thats 2 too many
I dont need or want that type of buyer
especially now they can seriously effect my ability to trade on ebay
Finally! says
11:09 pm on 21/05/2008
I’m setting it to the MAX!!! There is no excuse for bidding on an item and not following through. I sell charity items, so I find it especially appalling when bidders leave me and my charities high and dry.
Mark Classic says
11:11 pm on 21/05/2008
2 in 12 for us too.
Chris Dawson says
11:21 pm on 21/05/2008
Whilst I generally agree with the arguement “There is no excuse for bidding on an item and not following through”, I also have to acknowledge that there are some poor sellers out there that are quite frankly a nightmare to deal with.
I can quite well imagine a nightmare seller being trigger happy to issue a strike, so I’ll give a little leeway – some of my best ever and easiest to deal with buyers were those on -1 feedback that emailed, said they’d had a nightmare experience, and please would I let them buy
Sue Bailey says
11:29 pm on 21/05/2008
In the last 12 months, I’ve had two sellers not deliver, and refuse to refund me. In both cases I have put in PP claims and been refunded, and had the seller give me a UI strike for it. If i didn’t know about getting strikes removed, I’d be blocked from bidding on North’s stuff and Mark’s stuff and Finally’s stuff
Chris Dawson says
11:39 pm on 21/05/2008
I think far too many people go for the max on buyer requirements without ever checking how many it’s actually blocking. Sometimes it can be horrifying to see someone’s buyer requirements activity log and see just how much business they’re throwing away.
I’d recommend starting off low, and only tweaking the levels upwards if you’re getting problems. The alternative is to start off at the max and then start tweaking the settings downwards, and keep going until you get a problem and then tighten up slightly.
(BTW, one bad experience with a buyer is *not* synonymous with having your settings too relaxed. Plenty of buyers/sellers out there could fly past max settings and still be a PITA to deal with. It’s if you get a steady trickle that you should tweak your restrictions up a bit)
Richard says
11:54 pm on 21/05/2008
All my listings are PayPal immediate payment only, so the setting is kind of redundant. They can’t not pay.
Chris Dawson says
12:09 am on 22/05/2008
That tends to make life easy
Just use the countries you don’t ship to I guess
Oasis says
12:35 am on 22/05/2008
Firstly didn’t even know about the activity log, so a massive thanks to Chris and Sue on that one.
Had the 2 in 30 days settings for ages, after checking my log it appears that in April I ‘refused’ 4 potential Buyers, one for too many unpaid strikes and had a FB of 244 (99.6%). The other 3 were because they didn’t meet my criteria needed. Which I think is where I ask my Buyers to have a Credit Card on file.
So as an experiment I have increased the strikes to 2 in 6 months and will remove the Credit Card requirement. And closely watch the findings over the coming month.
katakitty says
7:07 am on 22/05/2008
2 in 12 for me, thank you eBay.
I spend far too much time chasing NPB’s so something which will help ease the administration load is welcome. I have tried Immediate Payment only but that just causes problems with multiple purchasers.
Hitesh says
7:10 am on 22/05/2008
Not too sure about developed ebay countries like Uk and Usa ,
But using the block feature here in India to its max
ie. blocking buyers with 2 uid in last 12 months ,
would mean cutting your sales to 25 percent.
I am going for the option of blocking buyers with 3 strikes in last 6 months
And will closely monitor the LOG for a few days .
Also an interesting idea till the dust settles would be to add in your FAQ
” Recently There are some changes in buyer block preferences on EBAY …
Please contact me if you think you have been unfairly blocked “
northumbrian says
7:12 am on 22/05/2008
in todays climate where sellers may be a little wary of filing a NPB
any buyer that has even 1 never mind 2 bothers me,
I am prepared to lose the bid of the odd buyer like SUE ,
whilist I agree its important to monitor who has been blocked
we do not have the buy it now or instant purchse mind set,
we are mainly auction only.
if our listings are reaching a respectable price ,and we are being paid ,is the important data
northumbrian says
7:17 am on 22/05/2008
Chris
I dont consider blocking someone who has not paid in the past as losing business
no matter how large the list
I see it as good business , with stress and administration saved
northumbrian says
7:23 am on 22/05/2008
Sue
those sellers should have refunded and I consider they are wrong for giving you an UPI
though if they have sent the goods and they have not turned up twice to your location,
you being blocked may not be a bad thing from a sellers point of view
Kiss says
7:35 am on 22/05/2008
I’ve just gone in and set mine to the medium of 2 strikes in 6 months and will keep an eye on how many it blocks. It didn’t block many before.
For me the most useful feature for a long time has been blocking those to countries I don’t ship.
northumbrian says
7:35 am on 22/05/2008
I have at this moment a buyer who has has had 68 negatives in the last 12 months as a seller,
I have been dancing the dance for the last 4 weeks trying to make him pay up,
I Have filed an UPI though there is no chance I am going to issue a strike and get 3 negs in return with the way the DSRs and seller performance thing works these days
I dare bet dollars to doughnuts the 2 strikes in 12 would have saved me this bother
Sue Bailey says
8:01 am on 22/05/2008
@ #15 FYI: one parcel turned up postmarked the day I opened the PayPal dispute, and the other was in fact a multiple purchase where the seller only sent half my order. If you think those facts make me a bad buyer, I think that just proves my point: setting UIDs to the max *is* going to lose you some sales.
northumbrian says
8:06 am on 22/05/2008
I am not saying your a bad buyer
I was suggesting your postal service might not be all it could be
Sue says
8:08 am on 22/05/2008
Nowt to do with my postal service. Everything to do with two sellers who saw a “new” ID and thought they could make a couple of extra dollars by not sending me what I’d paid for, and telling me that as they were big PowerSellers who paid lots of fees, eBay would listen to them not “a newbie”.
And even if it had been my postal service, two parcels out of several hundred items bought on the internet is still a reasonable failure rate.
northumbrian says
8:18 am on 22/05/2008
not if it was my two parcels
I am still setting my blocks for non payers to the maximum
the odd good buyer may well be caught in the net
though its a price worth paying,
if my pocket starts to suffer or the list is too large. we may then reconsider
Sue Bailey says
8:48 am on 22/05/2008
:-p @ North.
Hitesh back up there at #12 – are there really so many non-paying bidders in India? Why?! I must say my own experiences *buying* from eBay India have been superb; I’ve never met a nicer bunch of sellers.
Dave says
8:48 am on 22/05/2008
Pity we couldnt block buyers that had issued say 2 negs in the past 30 days.
I am moving all my auctions to BIN, we tend to only get one bid anyway, with Instant Paypal payment.
I suppose a buyer who is blocked can easily set up a new account to circumvent any block.
Store Your Stuff aka Jade says
8:55 am on 22/05/2008
# 8 Richard, My setting are set to “immediate payment” also BUT I have had 2 sales this year that have sneaked through and gone into awaiting payment. 1st ended with a NPB filed I tried ringing, but contact info was false etc etc, the only comm I ever got from the “buyer” was entered as “no longer required” on the NPB screen. 2nd time (only this weekend just gone) I sent reminders to buyer every day for 3 days, on the 3rd day (yesterday) they payed.
I’m not entirely sure how the heck they managed to get through BIN without having to pay.
Uncle Sam says
9:29 am on 22/05/2008
Thanks for the heads-up, I haven’t seen the Buyer Requirements Activity Log before. None of the buyers currently on my list were blocked due to UPI’s but looking at my dispute console, one for the same period is now NARU, so perhaps the new requirements would have blocked him. As such, I’ll increase it to 2 strikes 6 months & see what happens.
Most of my blocked buyers are registered to countries I don’t ship to. Some of them contact me to say they are living/working in the UK but by the time I add them to my requirements exemption list, around 50% have already bought from someone else. Which is unfortunate but I don’t suppose there’s any practical way for eBay to create a workaround for this.
Sue Bailey says
9:42 am on 22/05/2008
Sam: I think it’s time eBay did do something about the shipping/registration thing. There’s the problem you outline, and there’s also the flip side, where a buyer registered in the UK requires shipping to, say, Nigeria. Seeing as eBay allow us to register shipping addresses, I think the block should be placed on those rather than the registration address.
Mark Classic says
9:51 am on 22/05/2008
I am with North, I have to guard the account whatever way I can.
People contact you if they really want to bid, that way you can check them out before lifting the block on a specific item.
I cannot see any other way to protect the account now.
Maximum it is.
But as buyers have so much power over sellers now, I have to select only the very best buyers as far as it is in our power to do so.
Don’t I?
Mark
DBL says
9:51 am on 22/05/2008
How does immediate payment work with multiple item orders? I was on the understanding that it doesn’t work for combined orders. 85-90% of my orders are for more than one item, would it work?
Sue Bailey says
9:56 am on 22/05/2008
DBL: no, immediate payment is one item only, sorry.
northumbrian says
10:16 am on 22/05/2008
I dont block bidders for anything else than non payment any bids a good bid in the auction game
you cant push prices up if there is no one bidding though its all pointless if there is no payment at the end of the process,
non payment is the most serious crime possible on ebay in our opinion,
the most serious penalty should be administered,
public flogging and debters prison, should only be the start of the punishment
Chris Dawson says
10:21 am on 22/05/2008
Probably also worth pointing out that immediate payment doesn’t work in conjunction with Best Offer.
Well it does, but if you accept and offer the immediate payment requirement is bypassed.
Hitesh says
10:54 am on 22/05/2008
# 22 … Hi Sue
Yes you are right.
Many non paying bidders here in India.
Not necessarily that they are not serious buyers.
Selling and setting up shop here till recent time was very very easy.
One did not even need a credit card to set up shop.
In the process many buyers would get trapped for no fault of theirs and end up getting strikes .
Exactly thats why i feel we would be blocking many good buyers in the process to hit the block sider to the max Here in INDIA.
Also note Sue that buyers from all over the world come to India For A lot for buying These days.
Not all buyers are as versed with Ebay india’s payment system as YOU or an experienced buyer would be .
Lots Of time In confusion , Many genuine buyers do get strikes , for no fault of theirs .
Richard says
11:03 am on 22/05/2008
Jade, “I’m not entirely sure how the heck they managed to get through BIN without having to pay.
You may find that immediate payment was taken off or not applied in Turbo Lister. Two bugs in TL to be aware of. If you have a BIN listing set to immediate payment and then change it to a SIF it removes the check mark against immediate payment. Also you can’t set immediate payment as a default setting, you have to double check every new listing you create. Those caught me out a few times when i first started doing it, but now I’m aware of those problems I know to look out for them when listing.
Haven’t had an NPB since February, makes life sooooo much easier. Last Xmas it got to silly levels of unpaid for items, In January I went Paypal only, then in February immediate payment only. It may not work for everyone, but in my case it made selling on eBay a breeze.
katakitty says
4:07 pm on 22/05/2008
I think there is an eBay glitch with this as I have just changed something else on the buyer requirements and found that my 2 in 12 months has defaulted back to:
“Have received 2 Unpaid Item strikes in the last 30 days”
Sue Bailey says
4:17 pm on 22/05/2008
Katakitty: I just checked on mine. On the summary page, it says 2 UIDs in 30 days, but if I go in to edit it, it says 3 UIDs in 6 months…. so goodness knows if it’s actually set how I set it or not
LS says
10:15 pm on 22/05/2008
I can’t think of a reason why a buyer would have a bunch of unpaid items. What would a legit reason be? If they had a real, legit reason, they would get the strikes taken off by agreeing with the seller about it. There’s no real reason to not pay for an item, and I’ll block all of the buyers who don’t pay that I can. It’s a HUGE waste of time to have to deal with the whole unpaid item process. Time is money.
seldom says
10:46 pm on 22/05/2008
I’ve got a new requirement, follow me to the forum for a screenshot……
Cliff Aliperti says
4:35 am on 23/05/2008
I’ll probably just leave mine to whatever the previous default was, it seems to work okay. I don’t end up filing that much, so it must be okay. If the new eBay buyer experience causes more problems for me, then I’ll up it. It’s nice to have the option, even if I won’t utilize it from the outset.
What concerns me is the language of “2-5″ UPI. I was always under the impression that 3 strikes and you were out. In other words, I thought 3 UPI strikes = NARU. That language tells me I’m wrong, and that bugs me a little because I planned this being some protection against losing the ability to neg non-payers.
Guess I’ll be all right though, again, this hasn’t been a huge problem for me anyway.
Sue Bailey says
8:42 am on 23/05/2008
Cliff: I believe it’s been changed to “three strikes within a short period of time”, though I’ve never seen a definition of how short this period of time might be (obviously they don’t want buyers gaming the system).
Seldom says
9:18 pm on 23/05/2008
Seems as though the number of UPI is the number initiated, which is not the same as the number of resulting strikes. But I could be wrong. Is there clarification on this?