I have an eBay selling question!?

[jd159]

There is someone bidding on a wallet and he is a new user with 0 feedback. I'm kind of skeptical of selling to him/her because there is another serious bidder that has real feedback. At checkout can I choose to sell the item to the next highest bidder?
He also created his profile today so I'm very skeptical

[coraann]

You do not get to choose the buyer. The highest bidder is the buyer.
However, you can solve this very easily. When he wins the bid, you add the shipping charges to the sale price and send him an invoice by email with the total costs. Then when he pays you and you
actually have the money in your account, then you ship the item to him.
Only use PayPal and you will have no problems. No other form of payment.

[love in siberia]

If they win it, you have to honor it. However, my mother has the same problem with people not paying for the wallets she has sold multiple times and has had to open cases. I also believe everyone has to start somewhere so give them a chance before you say or do something to screw yourself over.

[runner1]

Do you remember when you had 0 feedback? Every Power Seller was that way once.

[TwoTwo]

If the 'newbie' bidding didn't have a valid credit card and/or a valid credit card/bank account linked to PayPal then he would be precluded from bidding.

You could always click on to advanced options.. click 'contact member' and send an eBay-system msg. to him. You could even say something like "..I noticed you're a newbie with eBay.. I'm open to questions re: the item".. Nothing wrong with asking a question (for the buyer or the seller).. in fact eBay/PayPal encourage it. (I ask questions re: almost everything when it comes to eBay purchases and no one has become cranky about it so far).

When I was new to eBay I was browsing-through eBay-Auto, looking for a pre-owned vehicle and actually bid on two cars, except for some reason the system showed that the bids hadn't gone through. So.. I kept bidding. I got a call from the seller who said "..Giiirl.. do yoooou know you are bidding on automobeeeels"..? (southern accent). I told him that I was trying to but the system said it wasn't going-through and he said it was. I told him I was new to eBay and didn't know what I was doing but I really was interested in buying the car. Long-story-short.. that ended-up being a looong conversation and he helped me out with the Do's & Don't of eBay. (we're still friends today and that was 3 years ago!) Bottom line.. nothing wrong with contacting a potential buyer if one has doubts or questions or whatever.

I don't believe sellers can sell to the next highest bidder at check-out unless the highest bidder's credit card didn't go through, (or if the highest bidder decided to cancel/retract his bid)..or if you list that you only accept PayPal and the highest bidder doesn't have his credit card linked to PayPal, yet (or something like that). But it's easy-enough for him to link his card to PayPal.

For future listings, if you offer "make an offer" option on items you'll have contact from the potential buyer (which may (or may not) give you a little more information about him.

Everybody has to start somewhere, though. Just because he's new doesn't mean he's a con artist or isn't capable of paying.

HOWEVER.. I have seen that some sellers post something to the effect of "..we won't accept bids from eBay members with under a 50% rating", adding "contact us if you have a 50% or below rating, if you're interested in bidding on blahblahblah". People do do that and that's valid. Although anyone teetering close to 50% rating would have to be a bad risk, in my opinion.

He's probably fine.

[flower]

No you cannot do that after bidding starts, but next time you list something put into the ad no one with zero feedback bid, and you cant put in seller preferences so zero feedback cant bid. You should have thought of that before putting up the listing.

Learn how to sell something first, then list it, not when it is too late. The process is on the Ebay site.