Contact or Follow Up With Your Seller After a Purchase

Most of the time, an eBay purchase is a fairly self-contained thing—you either place a bid or Buy It Now. You then pay with PayPal, and—after a brief wait—your item is delivered. Sometimes, however, you need to follow up with your seller after the sale has occurred. The four most common reasons for this need are:

1. You're waiting longer than you expected for your item and need to track the shipment
2. You need to ask your seller a question about your item either before or after delivery
3. You need to arrange to return the item for a refund or exchange
4. You want to buy more from the same seller

If you're less familiar with eBay purchases, these tasks can seem a bit daunting.

The First, Most Basic Step: My eBay

Whichever of these tasks you're sitting out to accomplish, they all begin the same way—with a visit to your My eBay area. To visit My eBay to carry out these steps, do the following:

1. Hover over the words "My eBay" at the upper-right of your browser
2. Select "Purchase history" from the pop-up menu that appears

If you're on a mobile device using eBay's mobile app, tap on the "My eBay" control (you may have to hunt for it a bit, but it's there).

Tracking Your Shipment

In your My eBay purchases list, you'll see tracking information for every purchase you've recently made—along with an estimated delivery date—just under each listing title.

In most cases, you can track your package simply by clicking on the tracking number shown.

If tracking information is shown, either your seller hasn't shipped the item yet, or (equally likely) they have shipped the item outside of eBay's label printing system and haven't manually entered its tracking number. You'll need to follow up with them to get a shipment and tracking details.

Asking a Question

To contact a seller in order to ask a question about a particular item, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the words "More Actions" to the right of any purchase in your list
2. Select "Contact seller" from the pop-up menu that appears

You'll be asked to select a reason for your inquiry. For general questions, select the first item, "I have a question about using my item or I want to send the seller a message."

Then, click "Continue" to be shown a space to enter your message. Enter your message, then click "Send" to send it to the seller, who can then reply to you.

Arranging for a Return

To begin the process to return an item that has already been delivered, follow these steps:

1. Select the "Return this item" button to the right of any purchase on your list.

On the following page, you'll be asked to select a reason for your return, and given a space to add details about the reason for your return, as well as a photo.

If possible, enter a sentence or two detailing your particular issue with the item and your desired resolution ("I want a refund!" or "I'd like to exchange this item," for example), and supply a photo of the item's issue, if the issue is visible.

These steps will help you to make the case that a return is justified in the case that the seller balks or drags his or her feet.

Once you've entered the relevant information, click "Request a return" to notify eBay and the seller that a return is desired. You'll receive instructions for completing the return by email.

Note that this step isn't to be taken lightly; when shoppers request a return, their eBay defect rate increases—and this can affect their ability to sell on eBay in the future.

Buying More From the Same Seller

On a happier note, sometimes you just want to buy more of what the seller has to offer, but don't want to go through eBay's main search tool (which can return thousands of results) to track the same seller down again.

To go directly to the seller's current listings, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the words "More Actions" to the right of any purchase in your list
2. Select "View seller's other items" from the pop-up menu that appears

After doing this, you'll see everything else that the same seller is currently selling, and be able to easily buy from them again.