I've read several posts about people who had dead beat bidders who never paid. What about those who were the 2nd winning bid? Does anyone ever go to them to sell the winning item and get at least some money? How does that work?

Well if you have a deadbeat buyer or if you have a double of something you can do whats called a 2nd chance offer. You choose how many days you are offering it for and the person is sent a link and its pretty much a buy it now for them. They pay whatever they bid on it not the highest bid. If you have 5 of something you can write to all the people if you really wanted to. Now if you do this outside of ebay which I used to all the time they can kick you off of ebay if they find out.