A prospective buyer has emailed...

[CarmelitaMiggs]

asking for my phone number as they have some questions about a piece of furniture I am selling.
My instinct is: if they have questions they should email them to me. But maybe I'm wrong. How should I respond? Is there any harm in this sort of contact?

They should ask through the email questions facility. You could just say "I am quite happy to respond to your questions via email. "

but perhaps they have many questions.
could you give a mobile?

I would stick to email...any questions, even if there are loads can be answered in turn and you have a record of what you told them if they go on to buy, should any problems arise. You can also post the answers on your page for any other buyers to see.

Well I would say it depends what it is ... if its a fluffy bunny then stick to e mails, but if its something a bit more unusual then a mobile is acceptable. Never give out your home number, obviously.

I sold a broken kitchen appliance recently, which amazingly went for quite a bit of money, the buyer wanted to have a proper chat about it, what i thought was wrong etc which we did by mobiles, he bid and won and that was that.

if you do have a conversation via mobile make sure you put everything in writing via the ebay messaging thing.

Thanks for your advice. V helpful.