Payment for Custom/Special Orders

[clarry100]

We quite often get customers who browse our store and send us a message asking if we can make a special order for this or that or change quantities etc etc.

We usually have tried to oblige but it makes for something we normally don't have listed. And at a price we don't have listed.

After some haggling to/fro and agreeing a price, how can we go about invoicing them for ther special/custom order.

Up until recently we used to ask for thei PayPal email address and send them an invoice thru PayPal, but it seems of late eBay have totally blocked passing of email addresses within a message so we cant do that any more.

Its OK if they are a returning customer because we can get thier PayPal email address from a recent purchase. But not if they are a new customer.

Any ideas on this one will be welcomed...

[peridot55555]

As what crikey*mate says, but may I suggest what I did:

To stop anyone else trying to buy, this is what I do = No description of item, just say it is 'Special Order as per arranged, as described in the emails exchanged with buyer' - then put a sliver of a photo so the item can't be recognized. 

In the heading I usually put 'Special order for member (name), no other buyer accepted'.

Then email the buyer the item number.

[digital*ghost]

I think the make an offer strategy is good if it's an item and price that has the definite potential to be snapped up by someone else, and if you're messaging back and forth about a custom order, it's not too much extra work to arrange a specific time for the offer/acceptance to take place so that there's little delay in the process.

However, I personally just use the custom title / description method. Most of the time, my custom listings are for items I already sell but modified in some way, so I believe the risk of it selling to someone else to be minimal (plus by making it clear the listing is for a specific member, anyone else is ineligible to purchase and if I really needed to, I could report them for listing interference etc). 

I always put a full description and photos in the listing, though, for me it's just about giving the buyer full confidence in every aspect of the transaction. 

[the_billycan]

I don't understand. What if some so-called "numpty" does buy it? With regard to the OP, surely a sale is a sale, and another "special order" can be made up. I don't think I would call any buyer a "numpty" simply for wanting to buy an item I had for sale at the price I had set for it.

[digital*ghost]

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@the_billycan wrote:

I don't understand. What if some so-called "numpty" does buy it? With regard to the OP, surely a sale is a sale, and another "special order" can be made up.

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Not if you only have one, then it can cause unnecessary headaches, but the potential for that to happen is eliminated with the high-BIN strategy, which is why I mentioned it's a good strategy to use for items of high interest - the member who came up with the idea of doing it that way (a ridiculously high BIN price, then accept the agreed upon offer amount from the member in question), sells SLR cameras (hello, k1ooo-slr-sales), an item that can be in high demand and unlikely to have more of the same lying around.

[the_billycan]

Once again, a sale is a sale. In the past, on more than one occasion, I have had a situation where I have listed for a specific buyer who were supposedly desperate for a given item. I have listed, paying the relevant fee only to have the buyer fail to buy it. If someone else (a numpty??) had come along, I would have been very grateful. 

[digital*ghost]

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@the_billycan wrote:

Once again, a sale is a sale. 

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I'm not saying I don't understand that concept, but some sellers will consider the customer they're creating the listing for of higher priority than just getting the funds for an item.