Selling good on bought from discount sites

Numpty69 wrote: »

Hi


My question: Is it ok to buy items from sites such as WISH or ALIEXPRESS and sell them on ebay for a higher price? Is it even possible (or ethical or legal) to advertise on Ebay but get the item delivered to customer directly from WISH etc?


Thanks

Selling an item that you don't have in stock but you order from another supplier direct to the customer is called "drop shipping".

Whilst it's perfectly legal it may be against T&C of the site "you sell" on.

To give you an idea of the scale, google or search Israel and Amazon Drop Shipping to see quite how extensive it is, already.

Numpty69 wrote: »

Hi


My question: Is it ok to buy items from sites such as WISH or ALIEXPRESS and sell them on ebay for a higher price? Is it even possible (or ethical or legal) to advertise on Ebay but get the item delivered to customer directly from WISH etc?


Thanks

Answers.
1. Yes
2. Possible yes. Ethical, probably. Legal, yes (provided you register as a business with HMRC and don't break any trade laws).

Better questions:

Is it a good idea? Not really.
Can I earn any money doing it? Not really.
Does anyone else do it? Yes.
Do most of the sellers on Aliexpress and Wish already have their own accounts on Ebay and sell at the same price? Most of them, yes.

As for dropshipping, you plan on selling items on Ebay that will take two to three weeks to arrive from China. One customer in ten demanding a refund for late delivery will wipe out your profit. Add to that that you also have to sell within UK consumer laws and your suppliers don't.

vtech19 wrote: »

if your making a regular income then it's a business, or will be treated as one by the DWP/HMRC and/or whoever else wants to dip their hands in your pocket

I can't quite work out if you are post racking for a later spam edition or not. Your posts are rather odd.

Being a business or not does not depend on "making a regular income".

ballisticbrian wrote: »

So if, for example, you were to place the order and the third party you didn't have an arrangement with, this may come to light when they failed to deliver your item. You will have failed to meet your obligation to the customer to fulfil the order and are in breach of eBays terms and conditions.

Ebay only really care where the item is coming from if the customer starts to complain when it's late.
Interestingly Ebay in Australia have just put out new rules stopping sellers from dropshipping and especially from having goods sent from Amazon. It's impossible for them to police. Again it's only when things go wrong that they find out.

For a while I was selling craft supplies mostly imported from the Far East. One of my main suppliers started to offer a dropshipping service and pretty much ruined the market overnight. Items I regularly sold for £2-£3 now have hundreds of sellers offering them at 50p.