eBay: The Missing Manual

After the Auction

Ah, sweet success. A buyer has purchased your vintage Hopalong Cassidy lamp for more than you were secretly hoping to get. Even though the auction is over, you're not done yet. You still have a few details to attend to before you can spend your hard-earned cash.

Invoicing the Buyer

As soon as your auction ends, you get one of two emails from eBay. If your auction ended without any bids, eBay invites you to relist your item. To relist an item, go to My eBay and look under Unsold Items for the item you want. In the Action column, click Relist and follow the instructions.)

If someone won your auction, you get a congratulatory email with the details of the listing, the final price, and the buyer's email address. The congratulatory email contains a link you can use to create and send an invoice to the buyer. (Chapter 9 shows how you can automate the process of sending buyers invoices after the auction ends.)

Getting Your Money

Many buyers pay via PayPal as soon as the auction ends. Others will contact you to let you know they're sending payment through the mail. In either case, it's good selling juju to contact buyers to thank them for payment and let them know when you'll ship the item. New buyers especially get nervous if they don't hear from the seller within a few days of the auction's end.

If a buyer pays via PayPal, you get an email from PayPal letting you know someone has sent you money. Sign in to your PayPal account to accept payment and transfer the funds into your ...