Reducing unpaid items on eBay

Our latest updates to Best Offers, Offers to Buyers, and counteroffers will help reduce the number of items that go unpaid.

What you need to know

One of the biggest frustrations you’ve shared with us is around unpaid items. With this in mind, we’re constantly refining and improving the experience to ensure you can get paid on time. Learn about the latest refinements to help reduce unpaid items, including improvements to Best Offer scenarios where payments fail, to the counteroffer process.

Improving the Best Offer process when failed payments occur

In most Best Offer scenarios, buyers are required to have a payment method on file before submitting their offer, so it can be charged if you accept the offer. On rare occasions, the payment method may fail, leaving the item unpaid for. To address this issue, we’ve made the following changes:

  • If the payment method is declined, buyers will receive a notice prompting them to return to eBay to complete the payment before the offer expires.
  • The item will remain available for purchase until the payment is successfully completed and you’ll be able to accept other offers.

Payment method now required when buyers accept offers

An unpaid item scenario may also occur after a buyer accepts a seller’s offer or counteroffer. We’ve changed the process so that:

  • The buyer will only be able to accept the offer and secure their item once they’ve completed the payment.
  • The item will remain available for purchase by other potential buyers until it’s paid for.

Next steps

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to reduce unpaid items across more categories on our platform, including auctions.