International Buying & Selling without taking delivery of item?

coolster

Hi
I am from outside USA but want to buy and sell US items. Many US items ship domestically and do not ship worldwide.
It would also be cheaper and convenient if I do not physically receive the item.
How about after I win an auction, I pay the seller and ask the seller to keep the item and in meantime put item up for sale and get a buyer? Is this common practice and should i offer to pay the seller small fee for keeping/warehousing the item?
Or use an interim courier to hold item in transit?
Are there services around that can faciliate this?
Any comments will be much appreciated.
Thanks. :beer:

soolin

I think this is going to be a recipe for disaster.

You buy from seller A and then want him to send to your buyer B, how do you manage losses, postal insurance etc if buyer B claims not to have received item. Also, as a seller myself I ship on payment and would not hold an item for someone, that's not how I work, I get paid-I ship, simple.

lastly, how do you get round the paypal issue of only sending to the registered paypal address? Seller A can only ship item to you to be covered.

I can think of a dozen more reasons why this is a problem, but that's probably enough for now.

Soo

cazmanian_minx

Have a Google for drop-shipping companies. A lot of the US ones are now used to working with eBayers. You buy the stock from them, they hold it in their warehouse until you tell them where to ship it to - is that what you're looking for?

Caroline

coolster

soolin wrote:

I think this is going to be a recipe for disaster.

You buy from seller A and then want him to send to your buyer B, how do you manage losses, postal insurance etc if buyer B claims not to have received item. Also, as a seller myself I ship on payment and would not hold an item for someone, that's not how I work, I get paid-I ship, simple.

lastly, how do you get round the paypal issue of only sending to the registered paypal address? Seller A can only ship item to you to be covered.
I can think of a dozen more reasons why this is a problem, but that's probably enough for now.

Soo

We can specify that postal insurance is to be paid by buyer so if buyer B pays me postal insurance I would pay that to seller A to pay for postal insurance. When seller A ships to buyer B, tracking details has to be given to me and I will forward to buyer B.

Yes, the seller would have to be reliable ...if he does not ship, then I may have no recourse.

Any other reasons?
Thanks :beer:

coolster

cazmanian_minx wrote:

Have a Google for drop-shipping companies. A lot of the US ones are now used to working with eBayers. You buy the stock from them, they hold it in their warehouse until you tell them where to ship it to - is that what you're looking for?

Caroline

Thanks. I am familiar with dropshipping which only works with generic items. I mean unique items (eg. Elvis Presley's hair or Angelina Jolie's toothbrush) sold by individual sellers. These would be items that you don't want to have hassle of getting out of US and then bringing them back into US again 'cos you will be selling them anyway to US buyers.

One alternative could be to get my courier to pick up item from seller and then deliver to my buyer. So I don't pay the seller any shipping cost as I will be bearing the shipping cost. :beer:

soolin

coolster wrote:

We can specify that postal insurance is to be paid by buyer so if buyer B pays me postal insurance I would pay that to seller A to pay for postal insurance. When seller A ships to buyer B, tracking details has to be given to me and I will forward to buyer B.

Yes, the seller would have to be reliable ...if he does not ship, then I may have no recourse.

Any other reasons?
Thanks :beer:

You would then be covered for loss in post, but of course would still lose a paypal chargeback as paypal require the item to be shipped to the paypal address of the winning bidder. So if you won an item from seller A regardless of insurance seller A shoul donly ship to you, as that is his 'contract' (term used loosely), if he cannot prove delivery to you then he puts himself at risk and I can't see anyone doing that.

Also, what happens if seller A ships slowly to your winner..you would then of course be liable for those delays and get negatives, or maybe a paypal chargeback. Seller A will have no incentive at all to ship promptly or carefuly as he has nothing to lose by not doing so.

Another reason, if you can buy these items cheaply enough to resell and pay all the fees and still make a profit, how was it the original buyer could npt do that? I have bought and sold within the UK at a profit before now, but certainly not enough to rely on that for any real part of my sale. I just occasionally see something I know is misdescribed, or in the wrong category which I buy, then resell later. If you were looking for a quick turnover then you have the problem that your potential bidders could easily see every similar item sold in the previous 30 days..so would see that you bought it and how much you paid for it.

Soo

cazmanian_minx

coolster wrote:

Thanks. I am familiar with dropshipping which only works with generic items. I mean unique items (eg. Elvis Presley's hair or Angelina Jolie's toothbrush) sold by individual sellers. These would be items that you don't want to have hassle of getting out of US and then bringing them back into US again 'cos you will be selling them anyway to US buyers.

One alternative could be to get my courier to pick up item from seller and then deliver to my buyer. So I don't pay the seller any shipping cost as I will be bearing the shipping cost. :beer:

Ah, OK. I was sort of doing this last year with Labyrinth comics, but I was buying in the US (for about £8 a set) and selling in the UK (for about £30 a set - interest dying off over here now). I have a friend in the US who was my 'ship to' address for any seller who wouldn't send outside the US, and every seller I bought from was fine with that. Depending on what sort of volumes you're going to be using, could you negotiate with a drop-shipper to provide a storage and re-sending facility for you for a small fee per item?

I'm confused about where the profit margin is doing it USA-USA though.

Caroline