How Long Between Paying and Shipping on eBay?
eBay is a wonderful thing. Every day millions of visitors to the auction site buy and sell thousands of various items. Unfortunately, eBay did not make a regulation that stated what should be considered a reasonable amount of time between the purchase of an item and the shipping of the item.
This is probably because the sellers on eBay are individual business owners over whom eBay itself has no control; they are really just giving all of these many business owners a place to offer all of the items they are hoping to sell.
Let’s look at the following example of a typical sale through eBay. Let’s say that you looking for a Costco black secretary desk; you are going to search through possibly hundreds of listings before you find the one that most suits your needs and wallet. You find the right one and bid on it, hoping that you will be the winner. Because the longer it takes for you to pay for the item means a longer wait for the item to be shipped out, you should pay for any item you win as soon as possible. Many times a seller will delay shipping of an item in order to penalize a late payment from a buyer.
A good eBay seller will normally let you know when your Costco black secretary desk has been sent so that you know that it is on it’s way and can keep an eye out for it to show up. When the buyer is not notified by the seller about when the item is being sent, they are most likely going to ask about the expected time between payment and shipping.
There are a lot of tools to facilitate communication between eBay buyers and sellers; but if you purchase your Costco black secretary desk from someone who doesn’t tell you anything about what is going on with your purchase, you are of course going to be concerned about the length of time you are going to have to wait.
Most eBay sellers are reliable about shipping an item through eBay within a reasonable amount of time, and are very good at keeping their buyers notified of what is going on. eBay itself states that items should be sent within 7 days of receipt of payment; many buyers, though, feel that 7 days is too long and the seller should be shipping their items much sooner after getting their payment.
If you are dealing with a large seller, more than likely you are going to be getting what you purchased very quickly, as they are shipping on a regular basis through the wholesaler from whom they get their stock.
Because eBay understands the frustration of a buyer waiting an indefinite amount of time for an item they have purchased through a seller, they are constantly revising their policies to make certain that the sellers are going to be responsible. Remember that as long as you are utilizing the eBay system for making a purchase and sending your payment, you are going to be protected should you never receive the item you purchased through them. If there happens to be a delay, or you have some other concern about your transaction not running smoothly, the first thing you need to do is contact the person you have made the purchase from.

