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Completing the sale

The listing has ended and your item has sold. Good communication with your customers and prompt postage after the listing ends is crucial to your success as an eBay seller (What if you didn’t sell your item?).

Once your item has sold you need to:

You can manage your selling activities using My eBay. For example, you can mark an item as paid and then posted.

1. Contacting your buyer
Once your listing is over, you’ll need to contact your winning bidder or Buy It Now buyer. Checkout will contain some or all of the necessary information about your buyer. If the details are not complete, you'll need to contact your buyer to exchange information.
You may need to inform the buyer:
  • Postage cost

  • How you will post the item to them

  • When to expect it and a postal tracking number if you have it

  • The total price

2. Receiving payment
Always verify that payment has cleared before posting items. For PayPal or Paymate payments, you can see whether or not payment has cleared by checking in My eBay. For other payment methods you may need to check with the payment provider to confirm payment.
3. Posting the item
After receiving payment, the faster you send the item, the more likely the buyer will be to give positive feedback and buy additional items from you.
  • Review which postage options and postal services fit your postal needs, including irregular size packages and large packages.

  • Pack the item with enough cushioning to ensure that the item arrives undamaged (see packaging tips).

  • Post with a tracking number and offer insurance.

Manual tracking information for posted items
The inclusion of tracking information on posted goods helps to:
  • Manage buyers’ expectations as to when they can expect to receive goods.

  • Improve your efficiency and the Feedback and DSRs you receive from buyers.

  • Resolve disputes where a buyer claims to have never received an item or to have received a broken one (see postage problems).

There are a number of ways you can upload tracking information to your sold items. Read how.
4. Leaving Feedback
  • Leaving Feedback after your listing is over is an important part of participating in the eBay community. This is your chance to let other eBay members know what it was like to do business with your buyer.

  • The Feedback system gives everyone an incentive to be honest, timely, and fair. And it helps both buyers and sellers make decisions about who to do business with.

  • You can leave Feedback using My eBay, or leave Feedback at eBay's Feedback Forum.

5. Paying eBay fees
You can make a payment or change your payment method at any time by going to the Seller Account section in My eBay.
If your item did not sell
If your item didn’t receive any successful bids, you can:
If something goes wrong with your high bidder, you can:

Contact Customer Support
If you have an additional question about this subject, email us at Customer Support.
If you would like to ask a question on another subject, please use the Contact Us page.
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