Selling on eBay is fun and for many, profitable, but it can have stressful moments, especially when you're new and everything is unfamiliar. It can be hard to learn to trust your instincts, as you become more experienced, they'll be a good tool upon which to rely when you come across difficulties, like slow-paying bidders.

As a seller, we've all been there. Your auction got bids! When it ends, you send off an invoice. Then ... nothing. You check your mail box and Paypal, but no payment. The time comes when you need to make a decision about the next step. For most cases, eBay requires you to wait 7 days before filing what's called  an Unpaid Item dispute (also known casually as either a UPI or NPB, the second for "non-paying bidder"). By all means, file the dispute; eBay will contact the bidder at that point, alerting them there's a problem.

Here is where you need to keep your head. I recommend that you take a deep breath and be willing to listen to the other side. I've had three instances where I've had a problem getting a payment. One was cut-and-dried:  never heard from the bidder, filed the NPB, still no communication from the bidder. After the waiting period, I filed for a return of my final value fees (FVF), and that was the end of the story.

The other two weren't the same. After sending duplicate invoices and trying to contact the bidder via email (though the "contact buyer" option in My eBay), I filed the NPB for both. In the first case, the bidder had simply forgotten about the auction. They took the notice from eBay as a reminder, paid for the item, which I promptly sent; all was well. The second case was a little more frustrating. The buyer was new to eBay and didn't understand how the dispute console worked, and didn't realize it was me, the seller, who had filed the dispute. She seemed confused about all of it, so I emailed her directly to try and work it out. It turned out that she was going through the first steps of a divorce (and yes, I believed her), and she'd lost track of everything she'd been doing. In the end, she paid for the item, and everything worked out.

Granted, I don't generally sell "big-ticket" items, and I've heard the same stories a lot of others have about deadbeat bidders that drive an auction up with no intention to pay, then string along the seller until it's too late to recoup any losses. However, most of the people on eBay are everyday human beings like you and me, with real lives and other things on their mind. Especially as a seller, you need to find a reserve of patience that you might not have in other, more immediate parts of your life.

Communication is the key. Try to make contact with the seller: send a duplicate invoice, send an email to see if "everything is okay". Children get sick, computers die, real life can get messy. We can only see our side of the story, and sometimes it just takes a little patience to remember there's another side.

eBay is unique in one respect, the eBay Community Values, which state they hold the following to be true::

• We believe people are basically good.
• We believe everyone has something to contribute.
• We believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people.
• We recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual.
• We encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated.

They're not difficult values to understand; sometimes we just need to go back and re-read them, and remember that we're all in this together, buyers and sellers, and that's why eBay works (and we all have to admit it works most of the time!)

If you found this guide helpful, please choose yes, and thank you for reading :)