Acting As A Middleman on Ebay

marty1888

Is this wrong?

If people cant be bothered to search for things, is it wrong for you to do it and ship directly to them?

For Example, you see a good value item that you can make a small profit on. Instead of buying the item yourself, you list it and when its sold you then ship directly from merchant to buyer without ever owning said item yourself.

Raggie

What you are describing is "Drop Shipping", a number of companies and individuals earn a good living at it.

It is fair to say Drop-Shipping is more popular in the USA than europe, but its still done.

If you can earn a crust then why not.

marty1888

thanks, couldnt remember what the terminology for the practice was.

I take it that its advisible not to mention in your listing thats this is what you are doing?

Raggie

errr personaly I would not, but its up to you :-)

marty1888

I think its probably better not to.

People tend to not be happy when they know that there was a chance that they could
have got something for less if only they could have been bothered to look.

rrwfotr

marty1888 wrote:

I think its probably better not to.

People tend to not be happy when they know that there was a chance that they could
have got something for less if only they could have been bothered to look.

That's if the seller lets the person who he/she has sold the item know what they have done....For all the know they are purchasing a service/goods from them...

Also the seller has the risk also if they can't source the products they are selling or pay over the odds. Profit is the reward of risk as my dad always tells me....

soolin

If you drop ship and don't declare it in your auction then you are breaking ebay terms and conditions. Ebay require sellers to have the item in hand at the time of sale.

Also, you are leaving yourself open to chargeback problems, a buyer can start a claim for non receipt as early as day 7, you would need to be able to guarantee that the company you are buying from can deliver within in that time otherwise you will be out of pocket.

YOu may also run into problems if you sell something that you can't later buy yourself, if you start getting negs for non delivery you might as well give up on ebay entirely.

Soo

cookiemonster25

some sellers will not ship to anyone other than the person they sold to so ultimatly the item may end up with you having to ship yourself possibly knocking out any profit you make

soolin

cookiemonster25 wrote:

some sellers will not ship to anyone other than the person they sold to so ultimatly the item may end up with you having to ship yourself possibly knocking out any profit you make

That's a good point, also of course how is the seller going to prevent the shipper from putting an invoice in with the item? That would rather give the game away as to source of the item I would have thought.

Soo

Hintza

Unless you know and have a personal realtionship with the person as others have said its not worth the hassle!!

What I have done in the past is sold stuff for people I know and taken a small turn on the way through.

marty1888

a few points i didnt consider there. Thanks.


So its more hassle than its worth in your opinions