Buying antiques and collectables on eBay part 5 – once you’ve won

Here is the next installment of my guide to safely buying antiques and collectables on eBay – Once you’ve won.  This will cover : payment and communicating with your seller, receiving and checking your items.

Paying for your purchases:

Ideally you will be paying for your purchases by Paypal and you will fund the payment from your credit card. This is truly the safest way and protects you against most problems. If necessary some sellers will accept your cheque or a postal order and may be a way forward if the sellers feedback is very positive. I choose to accept these forms of payment as I know some buyers hate using their cards on-line. Please do be more cautious in selecting your seller if you choose not to use Paypal.

At the end of the auction you should receive an e.mail from eBay or your seller telling you how much to pay including postage and acceptable methods of payment.  All sellers must offer to accept paypal and they cannot surcharge for this service. You are expected to pay promptly – some sellers get quite worried if you do not pay within a day or two of the end of the auction. I find that most buyers pay within 48 hours and I think it is good practice not to wait any longer than this. If you need to wait longer to pay you should contact the seller before then end of the auction and ask permission to pay later – there is one exception to this ( see the next paragraph)

Communicating with your seller:

Hopefully your seller will contact you by ensuring you have an invoice to pay. A good seller will let you know they have received payment and when your item is in the post. By all means get in touch with your seller but it is not reasonable to ask the seller questions about the item after you have bought it, that should be done before the end of the auction as should any special requests regarding packaging or where you want the item sent to.  The question I am always happy to hear after the end of the auction is ” I am interested in another of your sales which ends in a few days time, will you wait for payment until that auction has ended and then combine postage on the two sales?” My answer to this question is always “Yes”.

If all else fails and your seller does not communicate with you it is possible to obtain their phone number from eBay.

Receiving your antique:

Within a few days of payment you should receive your precious antique or collectable . In some cases for a larger item you may be able to collect it but please ask about this before the auction ends. Most sellers will not accept personal callers, I dont as a matter of personal safety.

Unpack your item and check it as soon as possible, you need to act quickly if there is any damage ( see the next part of my guide for when things go wrong.) Hopefully you will be delighted and can leave positive feedback for your seller.

Leaving Feedback for your seller:

Sellers on eBay rely on their reputation and the feedback their customers leave. Hopefully you will have something good to say about the item or the service. It is also important to use the DSR stars to rate your seller. eBay has a strange concept of what is acceptable. Sellers who do not consistently achieve very high ratings are seen as failing. In school 4/5 or 80% is a reasonably good mark, on eBay that is a failure. Rate honestly but bear this in mind.