Why buy something you can get for free?

RFW

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Royal-Mail-1st-2nd-Class-C4-Franking-Pouch-International-A-Single-Pouch-Mail-Bag-/222081620486?&_trksid=p2056016.m2518.l4276

No accounting for idiots available. I can get these delivered from RM for free, I'm fairly sure anyone can as they don't seem to check if you have a franking account when ordering.

They're only of use to anyone with a franking account, they're possibly worth £1, they're not particularly strong bags or useful for much else.

I've also seen AirMail labels being sold, I'm assuming other readily available RM stuff is also sold. It's not even like they don't deliver it.

I'm sure there's plenty more stuff that I can find for free elsewhere being sold on Ebay.

celestius

If you look at the other items seller has listed, most of those can be got for free!! Seems I am in the wrong line of business!

RFW

celestius wrote: »

If you look at the other items seller has listed, most of those can be got for free!! Seems I am in the wrong line of business!

I'd imagine RM wouldn't be too pleased. I'm not sure how far off theft it is. They're certainly obtaining goods by deception.

Golden_Oldie

Well they've already sold 13 so there's must be quite a few gullible people out there!

TKPeters

Loads of it going on & has been for years. It amazes me that some people have the cheek to sell them & buyers have stupidity to purchase.

I doubt Royal Mail take any action, as it would easy for them to VERO via eBay any items that are available via the Business Account

RFW

TKPeters wrote: »

Loads of it going on & has been for years. It amazes me that some people have the cheek to sell them & buyers have stupidity to purchase.

I've seen it on various things over the years, I usually think that if someone is daft enough to buy money then that's their problem. The franking bags are a bit odd as they're only of use to anyone who uses a franking machine. If you have your name and address in they even post you them back when you've used them, so absolutely pointless paying for one.

ballisticbrian

They wont be posting these out, they'll be punching the buyers address into Royal Mail; drop shipping. I came under fire here on this forum for criticising certain types of drop shipping as some people can't see any nuances between different ways to run a business.


The opposing argument went something along the lines of, "if the buyer can't be bothered to find the best value or best place to purchase, then the seller is actually offering a valuable service", and my argument was that sites such as the ones that come up in google search that will apply for a driving license or passport (or whatever) are actually detracting from the user finding the actual solution, and you could extend this to other products and services in many cases.

RFW

ballisticbrian wrote: »

The opposing argument went something along the lines of, "if the buyer can't be bothered to find the best value or best place to purchase, then the seller is actually offering a valuable service", and my argument was that sites such as the ones that come up in google search that will apply for a driving license or passport (or whatever) are actually detracting from the user finding the actual solution, and you could extend this to other products and services in many cases.

It's an interesting point. Where Google would prefer everything to be organic it really can't be that simple. Selling government services (visas, driving licences, passports, etc) should be stopped by governments too.

As regards dropshipping I'm stuck in the middle. I get the point on certain areas and I've never done it in any form, mainly because i think it's a weak business model. There are some ways I think it could be useful. The closest I came was with a company in China who I knew quite well and was using regularly buying wholesale, they were moving into retail and wanted dropship sellers. I was in a quandary as they would either have been competing directly with me or a case of if you can't beat them, join them.
I chose not to and that product line faded out naturally anyway.

I could see dropshipping work as a way of working out what products sell and then sourcing them directly. I've never seen it as a business that has long term prospects. Even if there are some that do it well and have done it for a long time.

The seller in my opening post can't survive long term doing that. I've highlighted it here, there will be others. They'll be boasting to friends that they earned £50 selling free stuff from Royal Mail and someone will report them. The bags actually have "Royal Mail Property" printed on them. Similarly sites charging for driving licences that aren't the government, they will trip up and get caught in a criminal offense.

soolin

RFW I agree with you. Drop shipping is not a business model that I could work comfortably with and as for selling on things that can be easily traced back like RM stock- it seems a recipe for disaster.