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How do you respond to a buyer’s question outside of eBay?
 

Simple question… I’ve been an eBayer for over ten years now. I’m a power seller and top rated seller. I’ve watched the fees go from 3% to over 15% with fixed priced auctions. Add in PayPal fees and it is over 17% in fees. I’ve seen the post office rates skyrocket. I keep struggling but I can’t do it much longer.

I sell Auction style to keep the fees down, but with the new restrictions on multiple listings, it is killing me. I sell items in lots, because selling one gives me too small of a profit margin. I get lots of emails from potential buyers who want to buy multiple lots or the items for sale in a different quantity. My only option would be to close the open Auction style listing that I have and list it as a fixed price listing which I can’t afford to do with the increase of the fees. Of course, the potential buyer also asks for a “break” in the price for buying a larger quantity.

I can’t send them an email back that suggests that they just pay PayPal directly or that gives them my email address so that they can contact me away from the unblinking eye of eBay.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

There really isn't anything you can do in regards to contacting the buyer outside of eBay as they have closed all the tricks and loopholes we used to use.

eBay fees are affecting all of us, we have to learn how to adapt or find a new selling venue.

Anyway, WELCOME the Forum. :)

not alot you can do to contact your buyers unless you can get ahold of their emails.

When one of my customers ask for something like this, I tell them to message me with their email address and that I will then send an invoice over to them directly through ebay. I know it's risky, but I've never had a problem doing it.

Good luck!

How do you send an invoice through eBay? Or is that just what you are telling them (wink, wink).

I have my email address posted on my About Me page. I've thought of telling them to just visit my About Me page to answer any questions, but I don't know if they would get the hint.

Also, my About Me page just says what email address to use when sending PayPal payments, because, back in the day before eBay bought PayPal you sometimes had to tell people what your email address was to send payments. I just never changed it.

Thanks so much for any thoughts!

50% of my business is done via directly invoicing through paypal once you have the details from the ebay message .
Everytime i have a request for something slightly different to whats listed or different size or quantity i simply say
"no problem pop me your email over and ill send you an invoice"
"Please leave spaces in your email address as ebay me remove it from your message"

Then most of the time they do .
I find as long as they are still paying via paypal they know they are covered and are happy to do it this way .
And it saves you a few hundred a month in fees

I flat out tell them "please send me your email address, ebay's messaging system is too awkward for discussions".

There's nothing against any ebay rules in that. eBay doesn't us having potential buyers email addresses, but there's no EB rule that says they can't share it with us.

Ya know, you are even allowed to put your email address directly in your auction. i.e. "Please email me if you have any questions so that I can keep customer satisfaction 2nd to none! My email address is: xx@xx"

TurtleCove - I have read in the rules that you are “not allowed to include email addresses, whether or not they are clickable.”

Now, whether or not they are catching them and removing your auctions is another story. But, like I said, I’ve had my email address on my About Me page for years and it has never raised a fuss. The problem is that customers don’t go to my About Me page.

It also states in the rules that you can’t put anything on the About Me page that is has language that promotes non-eBay websites or items being sold outside of eBay.

I’m going to start adding language to my auctions that tells potential customers to view my About Me page. And maybe I’ll do what BruceUK does for the next request and see what happens.

SORRY! I meant an invoice directly though PayPal!!

If it is that big of a deal, ask for their phone number and talk to them directly. But keep in mind it only takes one person to mess it all up for you, and you will have a suspended account making no money.

Tread lightly. Done this quite a few times...till ebay gave me a warning out of the blue. Amazon gave me a warning on my first sale outside of amazon.

I no longer risk selling outside. Too risky to get an account killed. They are both scanning for this and trust me you wont get round it.