How to Block Buyers on eBay: 2022 Ultimate Guide

The majority of the time, eBay sellers have positive experiences and are incredibly appreciative of their clients. However, there are times when sellers on eBay come across dishonest buyers who, at best, just waste their time, and at worst, try to commit fraud. Here is a brief tutorial on how to block buyers on eBay for circumstances like these.

Quick answer:

• Step 1: Log into your eBay account and Go to the block bidders page
• Step 2: Enter the buyer’s username
• Step 3: Submit your blocked buyers

Continue reading to find out more information about how to block or unblock buyers on eBay and how to block specific groups.

Reasons You Might Need to Block a Buyer on eBay

A buyer on eBay who has been blocked cannot buy anything from you in the future. Blocked users can still view your listings, but they are unable to place a bid, make an offer, or select “Buy it now.”

Blocking a customer is different from blocking a contact on Facebook or WhatsApp. The buyer who has been blocked can still access your listings and get in touch with you.

Blocking eBay buyers shouldn’t be done frequently. But occasionally, especially if you’ve had a bad experience with a particular buyer in the past, you’ll have good reason to stop someone from placing a bid or purchasing their items.

Some legitimate reasons to block a buyer include:

• Non-payment of purchases
• Backing out of bids
• Negative or abusive interactions
• Fraudulent activity
• They’re a competitor and you don’t want them to be able to purchase your products

Every single one of your listings will be subject to the ban once you’ve blocked an eBay buyer. eBay advises vendors to use this feature responsibly because of this.

How to Block a Buyer on eBay

You’ll need the buyer’s eBay user ID or email address once you’ve made the decision to block a particular buyer in order to start the blocking process. Once you have the buyer’s information, just follow these simple instructions.

Step 1: Go to the Block Bidders Page

Enter your merchant account and then select “Block bidders or buyers from your listings” from the menu.

If you don’t remember the link, you can search “Block buyer” under “Help & Contact” at the top of any eBay page. You will also be taken to the necessary page by clicking the first link that appears.

Step 2: Enter the Buyer’s Username

Enter the user ID or email of any buyer you want to exclude from your listings in the text box. Make sure to comma-separate each entry if you are adding more than one.

eBay allows merchants to add up to 5,000 users to this blocklist. But hopefully, things won’t ever get that bad!

It’s also important to note that the “Restore list” button, located above the text box, enables sellers to view or restore previous iterations of their blocked buyer’s list.

Step 3: Submit Your Blocked Buyers

Once you’ve finished pasting usernames, click “submit” to save the list.

If all the usernames you entered are valid, you’ll see a message like this:

If any of the usernames or emails are invalid, eBay will let you know with a message like this:

Any time you visit the block bidders page or reload the page after blocking a buyer, their name will always be present in the text box. Simply cross a buyer off of this list to unblock them, then click “Submit” once more to save the modifications.

How to Block Messages from Buyers

In messages about your listings, you can still communicate with blocked buyers. Go to the “Buyer Requirements” section of your eBay account and check out the “FILTER OPTIONS” if you’d like to change this.

Make sure to uncheck “Please allow blocked buyers to contact me” when you list an item on eBay. This will guarantee that no one who has been previously blocked on the site contacts you. However, they’ll still be able to get in touch with you if there are any problems with previous transactions.

The management of your bidders and buyers takes very little time and improves the experience of selling. The same as our multichannel selling platform Sellbery, which will assist you in streamlining your management of product information across eBay and other marketplaces.

Unblock a Buyer

Anytime you want, you can take a customer off your list. Here’s how:

1. Visit the page for blocking buyers or bidders from your listings.
2. In the text box, remove the member’s username.
3. Select Submit.

Pre-emptively Blocking Buyers

If you frequently find yourself blocking customers, it might be a good idea to establish some criteria that will bar particular demographics from buying your goods.

Users with a history of non-payment, for instance, could be blocked. You may experience fewer unpaid item cases as a result, which could save you a lot of headaches.

Or, if you wanted to be really cunning, you could block customers from certain nations or areas where shipping is expensive. If you work with low-margin products and provide free shipping, this could be a great way to safeguard your company.

Block eBay Buyers by Setting Up Requirements

Sellers can specify the minimum requirements that eBay users must fulfill before they are permitted to make a purchase from their store by adding buyer requirements to their eBay store. This can lessen the possibility of a merchant encountering unfavorable customers.

However, you need to exercise caution when putting these demands into place because they might affect eBay sales. To set a higher barrier to entry for customers who want to buy from you, this function can (and should) be used selectively.

On the Buyer Requirements page, merchants can block buyers who:

• Have a history of non-payment recorded on their account
• Have breached other eBay policies in the past
• Have a low feedback score
• Are currently winning or have bought 1-100 of your items in the past ten days (you specify the number)
• Don’t have a PayPal account
• Have a primary delivery address in an area you don’t ship to

You can once more visit the Buyer Requirements page to implement some of these requirements for your eBay store. (As we already mentioned, the Site Preferences tab in your account gives you access to this page as well.)

Setting up buyer requirements will automatically forbid some buyers according to the criteria chosen.

Block Buyers by Location

Furthermore, eBay sellers have the option of blocking users from a specific region or nation.

This mostly makes sense for businesses looking to lower eBay shipping costs. For instance, those who want to avoid international shipping might prefer to only ship to users who are located domestically. Alternatively, US-based retailers may want to restrict orders to specific areas outside the lower 48 states, such as Alaska and Hawaii, since these areas typically incur higher shipping costs than the rest of the mainland.

You can go to your account’s shipping preferences to exclude buyers from a specific area. This link can also be found in the site preferences section of your account.

You can exclude shipping locations from this section, which is accessible from here. Subsequent to this heading, click “edit.”

Simply check the appropriate boxes to create a list of shipping addresses that are no longer allowed.

Return to the buyer requirements page and select the “Block buyers from areas you don’t ship to” checkbox to complete the process.

If you can’t afford to ship to some areas, excluding shipping from the locations is a wise choice.

Final Thoughts: How to Block Buyers on eBay

In order to block a buyer, you will need to go to “My eBay Sold” and click on the item you want to block the buyer from purchasing. Click “Block Buyer.” Once you’ve entered their contact information (phone number or email address), you’ll be asked to confirm that you want to prevent them from making future purchases of your goods.

Let Sellbery handle your orders and product data while you focus on managing your buyers. We’ll assist in automating the entire process so you can sell on your websites and on various marketplaces.

Finally, while constructing their company for profitability, eBay gives merchants the freedom to use blocking selectively and wisely.

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