Ordered by Ebay, arrived as Amazon gift

olbas_oil

A recent toy purchase with an eBay seller arrived 3 days early via Amazon with a gift slip (but no sender information). At first I thought this was coincidence. I had let it be known I was looking for this item, and thought a relative had sent it, but having enquired with the eBay seller, they sent a photo showing tracking and delivery (but otherwise redacted).

Now I got my item early, cheaper than advertised on Amazon, but I can't help feeling there is some sort of scam going on. Or could it be that the seller had run out of stock and sourced one from Amazon instead?
Any ideas?

k3lvc

olbas_oil said:

Now I got my item early, cheaper than advertised on Amazon, but I can't help feeling there is some sort of scam going on. Or could it be that the seller had run out of stock and sourced one from Amazon instead?
Any ideas?

Fairly standard practice - eBay seller is taking advantage of price fluctuations on high volume/popular products without taking ownership/having to post any of the items. Begs the question why you didn't check Amazon and buy direct for the lower price.  

knightstyle

I have received ebay items like this as well.  But do not understand how the sellers make money, soap was cheaper on ebay than amazon even with free postage but the order came from amazon.

olbas_oil

k3lvc said:

olbas_oil said:

Now I got my item early, cheaper than advertised on Amazon, but I can't help feeling there is some sort of scam going on. Or could it be that the seller had run out of stock and sourced one from Amazon instead?
Any ideas?

Fairly standard practice - eBay seller is taking advantage of price fluctuations on high volume/popular products without taking ownership/having to post any of the items. Begs the question why you didn't check Amazon and buy direct for the lower price.  

...but I did. As I said in my post, the EBay price was about 40% cheaper than the lowest Amazon price. Now I have no way of knowing the actual price paid by the Ebay seller, but I don't think they made any kind of profit.

soolin

It might even be there own FBA stock , or if they did pay more to drop ship to you it might have been because they didn't want a defect for cancelling if they had run out of their own stock.

Nothing to be alarmed about.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Common practice which eBay should have stopped years ago if they had any sense. 

No scam, just buy low, sell high but they are cutting out the middle bit and sending direct from the source, which in this case happens to be retailer. 

Amazon prices flap all over the place, this will tell you whether the price on Amazon was lower and maybe the seller was caught out by the price going up:

https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/

Anyone else remember the days of Amazon giving you a refund of the difference if the price dropped within 30 days? 

bris

Most Ebay business sellers also sell on Amazon so it's probably  where the stock is located issue.

I have been buying from a company called Testermans recently and all there items are more expensive on Amazon than Ebay, usually just the postage but a fiver is a fiver.

RFW

soolin said:

It might even be there own FBA stock , or if they did pay more to drop ship to you it might have been because they didn't want a defect for cancelling if they had run out of their own stock.

Nothing to be alarmed about.

I've just sent a couple of Ebay orders from my Amazon stock. Sometimes it can work out quite cost effective to have it shipped from Amazon. Not that it did in my case but that's by the by!
I've got a line that should start selling nearer to Christmas that will probably sell better on Ebay but I plan to store and ship by Amazon.

There are loads of other possible reasons. If the price paid is less than the Amazon price then I can't see the problem.
I do know some sellers on Ebay have some of my own brand items listed and have them 1-200% marked up from Amazon. I would be mightily ticked off if I bought them on Ebay and then found them on Amazon. It's part of the reason I sell on Ebay as I don't get much return from it compared to Amazon.

Brywalker

soolin said:

 it might have been because they didn't want a defect for cancelling if they had run out of their own stock.

Nothing to be alarmed about.

This.  I've actually done this a couple of times myself, the only difference being that I let the buyer know what  I was doing.