How to Find Stuff Actually Located in Australia

[dazzledayz]

The "Australia Only" filter in search really means "eBay Australia Only"

Any UK, US, Chinese or wherever seller who is registered on ebay.com.au will still show up.

Please Note: this does not work on the eBay mobile website.

Here is what I have found works on the main (full) website:

1. Do your search with "Australia Only" selected (or select it afterwards).

2. Sort results by "Distance: Nearest First".

Result:

Any items actually located in Australia will show the distance in km from your postcode.

Any items that don't show a distance are almost certainly located O/S.

Try it; it works well for me but you will still need to be careful that the seller has not lied about location.

I know of at least one bookseller who stocks from UK but still gives a Sydney location.

If you came across one of this guys listings on mobile you'd swear he was in Sydney.

On the main site search he shows no distance in km.

It's only if you check out his postage & handling times that you may smell a rat!

Before the recent changes the distance always used to be given for all search results.

Now you have to work that bit harder if you don't want to wait ages for crap or you want a seller who will actually respond to emails.

Don't fall for this "Free Postage" stuff either.

It just means "Postage Included"

[polocross58]

Thanks for your good advice  🙂

I commented on the Location button being moved by ebay in an earlier thread

Ebay needs to lift its game, imo, or it will alienate even more prospective buyers

According to someone we know who spends a lot of time driving around Sydney, ebay is advertising hard these days, on bus shelters, etc.

Means ebay isn't as smart as it believes itself to be OR as smart as it would like us to believe it is

Making changes which disadvantage the buyer whilst benefiting the seller - THEN paying a fortune to advertise in the hope of winning back the buyers it's cheesed off, sounds like LUNACY to me

but then a lot of eBay's 'innovations' seem like lunacy to me

Ebay seems intent upon creating a square wheel

[inozusb]

Yeah, I've been buying and selling on EBay for around 7 years and in the last month had 3 small itrems "located in Sydney" take 2-6 weeks to arrive in Brisbane, unfortunately nothing on the packaging could prove they were from O/S, it seems pretty obvious they had the items drop shipped to themselves then repacked them and sent them. They barely spoke English in their emails, and always blamed the courier. Then beg me to reverse neutral feedback and poor star ratings with a paltry $10 postage refund 😛

[fourandsixpants]

ref. OP's instructions (which were excellent and worked!!)

1. Do your search with "Australia Only" selected (or select it afterwards).

2. Sort results by "Distance: Nearest First''.......

........er, where has this (previously available....a few days ago anyway...) search option gone?

[kustomizer99]

I actually had most of my searches saved to show only AUSTRALIAN sellers for many years, and it worked just fine.

However, now eBay think they know better than me what I'm looking for and I get sellers from all over the world offering items I don't want AS THEY ARE NOT THE UNIQUELY AUSTRALIAN COLLECTIBLES I SEEK.

The searches now also default to that senseless 'Best Match' rubbish.... how on earth is there a best match for the single keyword 'CEREAL' for example?!

Ebay is a lot like MS Word.... thinks it knows what the user wants better than what the USER does.

[dazzledayz]

ref. OP's instructions (which were excellent and worked!!)

1. Do your search with "Australia Only" selected (or select it afterwards).

2. Sort results by "Distance: Nearest First''.......

........er, where has this (previously available....a few days ago anyway...) search option gone?

It's still there for the moment ... in the dropdown above search results - "Didtance: Nearest First".

Now however, the list is randomly displaying distances (or not) as suits it best.

This new search engine changes on a daily basis!

Different day, different result.

Maybe things will settle down in a few weeks when the developers stop their damned developing lol.

[anipperess70]

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@dazzledayz wrote:

The "Australia Only" filter in search really means "eBay Australia Only"

Any UK, US, Chinese or wherever seller who is registered on ebay.com.au will still show up.

Please Note: this does not work on the eBay mobile website.

Here is what I have found works on the main (full) website:

1. Do your search with "Australia Only" selected (or select it afterwards).

2. Sort results by "Distance: Nearest First".

Result:

Any items actually located in Australia will show the distance in km from your postcode.

Any items that don't show a distance are almost certainly located O/S.

Try it; it works well for me but you will still need to be careful that the seller has not lied about location.

I know of at least one bookseller who stocks from UK but still gives a Sydney location.

If you came across one of this guys listings on mobile you'd swear he was in Sydney.

On the main site search he shows no distance in km.

It's only if you check out his postage & handling times that you may smell a rat!

Before the recent changes the distance always used to be given for all search results.

Now you have to work that bit harder if you don't want to wait ages for **bleep** or you want a seller who will actually respond to emails.

Don't fall for this "Free Postage" stuff either.

It just means "Postage Included"

---

That does not work!

All the international seller has to do is say item location is in Australia and it will come up on the Australian search. It doesn’t mean the seller is in Australia. It means the item is supposed to be in Australia and it’s not until you pay for your item and notice the seller is from China that you know your items postage time which a couple of days should only be has now turned into weeks.

Indonesians are the masters of scam. They know every way to manipulate the system to get maximum profit. 

The only really way is to check out the sellers account location to find out if the item is really in Australia.

eBay don’t care because for every location restriction they put on the less chance the seller has of selling their item which means eBay don’t get their cut. They would lose money. 

[egglesdtp]

The thread was started FIVE YEARS AGO when the suggestion probably worked. But ebay makes so many changes, it's no wonder it doesn't work any more.

The best thing to weed out the OS sellers is to click on their feedback score, which will tell you where the seller is registered. That's if the multiple images in the gallery photo don't give it away first.

[lyndal1838]

You are answering a FIVE year old thread.

That is a long time in ebay land and it is no wonder that functions have changed.

If you need up to date information you should start a new thread.

[janeababe]

This seller comes ones up as based in Sydney. If you click on his id, it will show you where they are based. In this case, this seller is based in China. 

👍🏻😎