Is flow-deals.com a scam site?

Sandtree

AW618 said:
Is it likely that a one-woman band operating from a  domestic address could offer 64,000 different products, including large white goods?

You don't know what address she is in... the company address etc are a mail forwarding company hence they have over 37,000 businesses registered to that address. She herself says she is in Finland when you look at the papers filed in Companies House.

As a dropshipper she could have 1m different products no problem at all... drop shipping is effectively a white label service... You do the sales, set the pricing etc and another company owns all the stock and does the logistics of delivery etc. A single site can use multiple drop shipping companies, this is often evident because they will say in their Delivery section that items may be over multiple parcels (they don't explain but its because it may be coming from two different companies).

Who deals with returns does vary a little more between providers but often that's also the drop shipping company rather than the merchant. It gives a very easy entry to the market as you don't need to pay for stock, you don't need to hold stock, you don't get wasted stock, don't have to deal with logistics etc... obvious downsides are that you aren't in control of any of the above so if your drop shipper gives bad service it reflects bad on you and more so than say UPS or Hermes being bad because the drop shipper is invisible to the buyer.

Oswulf

In the end it turns out that I was worrying unnecessarily.  The money was debited by "ClickViewBuy", and the machine arrived safely, albeit a few days later than originally promised.  Thanks all.

Sandtree

Given you struggled to find any feedback on them maybe its worth while leaving some to help a fledgling business and maybe stop others jumping to the conclusions you did?

Oswulf

If I were to give feedback it would be entirely negative.  The website should have explained precisely how it was working, rather than leaving my mother and I profoundly concerned for several days.  I know I'm not going to get those sleepless nights back.
And I didn't "jump" to conclusions.  I investigated the website and the company accounts to the best of my ability using publicly available data before posting here.  There was nothing there to give me any reassurance; it had all the hallmarks of being a scam.  Had the website explained about drop shipping my fears might have been assuaged.
And at a more practical level, the company that my mother thought she was dealing with wasn't the one that charged her debit card.  Delivery was several days later than promised.  There was no tracking information provided.  The company's 'phone number was also disconnected for at least two days.  Whilst it turned out not to be a scam, it was most certainly not a satisfactory experience.