Most of your buyers will pay for their items instantly or within a few days. Every now and then a week will pass with no payment and no contact from your buyer. You’ve got yourself a possible unpaid item, also known as a Non-Paying Buyer (NPB). What now?
1. Send a friendly payment reminder
If a week has passed without payment or communication from the buyer, send them a friendly reminder.
Example:
“Hi, I haven’t heard from you or received payment. Please send payment by [INSERT DATE HERE] or message me if you need a bit more time to pay. I can be flexible as long as our line of communication is open.”
2. Cancel the order (if they ask)
If the buyer messages you requesting to cancel the order, just do it and be done with it. It’s better to cancel the order now rather than having to deal with returned items or an unhappy buyer (even if the buyer is at fault).
3. Open a Non-Paying Buyer case
If the buyer doesn’t send payment or respond to your friendly payment reminder by the deadline, then now’s the time to open a Non-Paying Buyer case. Both eBay and Bricklink allow sellers to open a Non-Paying Buyer (NPB) case for unpaid orders. Ebay calls the cases “unpaid item” cases while Bricklink calls them “Non-paying Buyer” cases.
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”
The vast majority of Non-Paying Buyers will NEVER contact you! This is why I like to be flexible with buyers who communicate with me–they usually end up paying or at least asking to cancel the order.
Feedback
Both eBay and Bricklink provide seller protections against nasty, retaliatory negative feedback from Non-Paying Buyers. The sites may remove the feedback from your feedback page.