Out of around 400 sellers I've dealt with all but 9 have communicated with me within moments or a very few hours after their auction or sale ended & I won & paid in full by instant PayPal. That's good communication. After a buyer pays a seller, the least they can do is confirm they've received the payment.

There's no Ebay rule or federal law that makes quick communication with a buyer a mandate; but, it sure does keep the buyer from worrying & left hanging after they've spent a chunk of money. One brief email confirming payment, date & terms of shipment prevents concerns of fraud.

If a seller wants to get excellent happy positive feedback from a buyer & repeat sales, then dropping a quick line or two of email acknowledging the sale is a very smart selling tactic. Don't leave your buyer hanging! If you are not going to ship their item right away, drop them a line telling them so. Otherwise you risk getting neutral or negative feedback--especially now that eBay is allolwing buyers to do so without sellers' retaliating. With eBay's more specific 5 star feedback ratings of sellers, communication and shipping are two of the criteria for a buyer to vote on.

Sellers, if you are paid for insurance by a buyer, it is fraud not to purchase it. If that package gets lost and you didn't buy insurance after being paid to do so, Seller, you are nailed! Keep your postal and insurance receipts until the buyer has sent word via email that they received the item insured, as requested, in good condition, as advertised in the item description, and feedback is left for you. A buyer might be so excited or so busy that they casually look over the item and it seems fine at first glance. But after they use it, they can find damage to it. A good idea is to store all shipping receipts in a manilla envelop, and stapled the shipping receipt to the insurance receipt. If the buyer finds they never receive the item or it is damaged in shipment, they will need these receipts to make their USPS claim after 21 days since the alleged shipment date.

If a seller doesn't have proof of their shipment and insurance receipt, and refuses to provide it to the buyer, the buyer can open a resolution claim with PayPal (if that is how they paid the seller) and a dispute with eBay. If the seller still doesn't respond with these items, PayPal with freeze the money owed while resolution process is ongoing and eBay will have unknown consequencs for the seller. The buyer can report the insurance fraud to the USPS and legal action will be taken.

Unless you are a seller who wants to be in that kind of quadrupely hot waters, do communicate well with your buyer--that is, if you want to keep doing sales on eBay, the USPS & PayPal.

There are a good many buyers who will revisit a deadbeat seller's item for sale for years to see if they ever try to sell the item the buyer never received. It's just not worth all of these risks not to communicate well with your buyer.

I hope you found this guide useful. Please let me when you do by voting. Thanks kindly!