ebay item delivered by... amazon

Crowqueen

At least in this case it was from the seller's own stock, it was just dispatched by Amazon, so they took all the uncertainty out of it.

The only time I've left a neutral the item was dropshipped, but I don't see anything wrong with it in principle. In practice, the pitfalls are legion since you are putting your faith in a third party and placing your account in their hands. Their mess-ups rebound on you.

There's also the fact that the item is not in the location specified in the listing, which means dropshipping from China is going to cause a lot of headaches as regards time of delivery and customs charges, not to mention quality of goods.

Many buyers do take exception to it but it's not really any different to getting someone to do some comparison shopping for you or perhaps acting as a shopfront for another firm who just do manufacture rather than retail. I'm not defending it so much as pointing out it is a legitimate tactic in principle with an awful lot of downsides in practice.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

porto_bello wrote: »

Judging by some of the damaging feedback comments and ratings, quite a few eBay buyers take exception to this, so I'm not sure how successful it is in the longer term.

Most are sellers earning beer money and I guess few pay tax either.

There's nothing wrong it (drop-shipping that is, not the tax evasion) but it's not positive for the customer and most importantly is extremely bad for eBay.

The Amazon drop-shippers are eroding eBay's customer base by advertising Amazon's price and service (which is usually exaggerated by the abuse of Prime).

eBay sees Amazon as it's biggest competitor and you wont see any ads for Amazon on eBay (despite how many ads are plastered all over the place) yet ironically these sellers are giving Amazon the best possible advertising and not only that but also making a margin out of the sale rather than spending marketing money. Amazon must rub their hands with glee at the whole concept.

eBay are incredibly foolish and short-sighted, they should have banned the practice years ago.

porto_bello

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

eBay are incredibly foolish and short-sighted, they should have banned the practice years ago.

Difficult to see how eBay could effectively ban an eBay seller dropshipping via Amazon though, unless eBay state that the item has to not just exist, but be in the physical possession of a seller, before it is listed and not advertised for sale anywhere else, whilst it is listed on eBay.

Perfectly legal maybe, but I have a pretty low opinion of dropshippers on eBay. More than once, I've honestly sold items as used, only to find a dropshipper has bought them to fulfill an order for the same item - only selling it at a higher price by claiming my used item was brand new!... seems a crazy way to risk an eBay account for the sake of a few quid!

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

porto_bello wrote: »

Difficult to see how eBay could effectively ban an eBay seller dropshipping via Amazon though

It would be difficult I agree especially as eBay doesn't enforce many of their rules anyway.

Amazon may seem great but as choice reduces Amazon won't be such a friendly company, just like our beloved supermarkets.

Supporting independent businesses is very important for a healthy and competitive market, a place like eBay is the perfect platform for this but sadly the fakes and the poor sellers have damaged the reputation very badly.

This Amazon drop-shipping has badly damaged my category and Amazon's grip on the market isn't positive at all for any one involved from the manufacturer right down to the consumer, in fact it's only good for Amazon.

RFW

This thread seems to have several discussions. Presumably the OP's parcel was Fulfilled by Amazon. There are a number of companies that will hold and dispatch your stock for you, Amazon are a good option as they also offer their own sales platform (albeit a costly one). Ebay have toyed with doing this themselves, if I remember right they were trialling it in the US.

I'm not sure how Ebay could stop anyone sending goods from wherever and whoever they like as long as it gets to the buyer, be it dropshipping, fulfilled by Amazon or whatever. Ebay has always been about as little intervention as possible, often to their detriment.

There are plenty of dropshippers on Amazon selling from other sources, so they are affected too, albeit not as much as Ebay.

That said Ebay seem to be doing better than Amazon lately, especially in the growing mobile sector.