How long do you allow buyers to pay?

Mowgli87

I sold 10 clothing items on sunday and rec'd payment for most of them, 6 were paid immediatly, however 4 have not yet been paid for. I sent invoices to the non payers yesterday (24 hours after auction end) and have sent messages asking when they will pay today.

It has only been two days so do you think I have been to hasty? I normally pay for items immediatly so I am holding everyone to the same attitude which is probably wrong of me!!!

How long is the average time to payment and when should I start getting annoyed/take action?

I intend to do this more regularly so any advice gratefully rec'd!!

Oliver14

You can do nothing until four days (when you can open a dispute) they then have another four days after that to pay. So there is no point haveing terms which require payment before day 4 as you cant enforce them.

Be careful sending messages to early asking them when they will pay this may just annoy people. If you had sent messages (not invoices) to me after 24 hours I would normally make you down on your DSRS for communication and depending how I was feeling and how much you annoyed me may wait longer to pay (petty I know but I hate being hassled).

I normally send an invoice on day 2 or 3 as a reminder. Then on day 4 I normally send an email asking if there are problems if I get no response or a dodgy one I open a dispute on day 5.

Mowgli87

Thanks Oliver14, great advice

chemical.galaxy

I agree, I don't like to hassle and generally only send an invoice if the buyer is quite new to ebay.
I have set unpaid assistant up to open a case after 4 days and close it after 8 days - I use unpaid assistant as I have a fairly high volume of sales but it has not affected my feedback as yet.

lovinituk

Mowgli87 wrote: »

How long do you allow buyers to pay?!

16 days before I open a NPB case (automatically raised) and they get another 4 days from then. So basically I allow 3 weeks for them to pay - if they can't pay in that time then they deserve a strike!

Crowqueen

Oo @ Lovinit. You're extremely patient. I've usually opened disputes when I can; that said, I haven't had to since the timescale was reduced from 8 days to 4. I don't sell much, though.

I'd always give them the full four days - it's only Tuesday today, plenty of time yet until you can enforce anything. I wouldn't be hassling them until day 3, and I'd only send a single invoice without comments. It's better not to badger people as it only adds to your discomfort if they do end up paying; it happens and there's very little you can do about it. I certainly wouldn't ask only 24 hours after auction end, that does sound a bit hasty. There are plenty of reasons why payment might take a day or two; on the other hand, most people will have paid by day 3 or 4 and then they should chased gently and a dispute opened.

lovinituk

Crowqueen wrote: »

Oo @ Lovinit. You're extremely patient. I've usually opened disputes when I can; that said, I haven't had to since the timescale was reduced from 8 days to 4. I don't sell much, though.

The items I sell are always held in stock in large numbers so a non-payer isn't really holding on to something that I could otherwise sell to someone else - we just grab another one from the shelf. I also use the unpaid assistant so it deals with the cases for me in the background without having to think about it.

I can understand that someone with a higher value item with few or only one in stock, or private sellers may want to have that paid for quicker so will probably be raising cases a lot sooner.

hermum

I also have the unpaid assistant set to open after 4 days, depending on how I feel I may send another invoice on day 3. If someone's contacted me to say that they will be late paying I don't mind usually.
I've had so many NPB's and late payers lately it's untrue, I don't know whether some of the late ones don't realise that you can now open npb's on day 4. I think that's more than enough time.
As others have said, it's not a good idea to hassle people after 2 days, especially asking if they're going to pay that day. I'm not sure whether my occasional duplicate invoice on day 3 annoys people or not but I'm never sure if it's best to just open the npb or give a gentle reminder first.
I guess I'll find it now.