Items supposedly located in Australia...

[jun_watarase]

I noticed something interesting just now.

I saw an item that was supposedly located in Darwin, Australia.

The seller had the exact same item in another listing, except that was located in HK.

The Australian listing was 2.5x the price of the HK one but had a suspiciously long shipping time (6-9 days in Australia). In my experience, thats roughly the time it takes to ship from HK to AUS, not within Australia.

Several other HK based sellers were doing the exact same thing with the exact same descriptions (We ONLY ship within Australia, etc).

I'm thinking that non-AUS sellers are faking item locations and shipping from HK anyway to get a bigger profit margin, knowing that buyers are likely to pay more for items located in Australia....

[digital*ghost]

You may be right, and there are a few sellers that misrepresent the item location for various reasons, but I just wanted to say that 6-9 days is not really a suspiciously long time for postage from NT, and while I've had mail from HK take 1-2 weeks before, the most common timeframe is 3-5 weeks. It takes about 2 weeks when I pay for non-courier express.

There are also a number of sellers with warehouses or some form of agent in Australia; some of my purchases are shipped to these warehouses / agents, then repackaged and sent on via Australia Post, so it's at least feasible that some of them carry stock, and the higher prices are to account for AP shipping charges, which would also account for the AU only postage restriction as I can't see any reason to not still post worldwide like the rest of the items if P&H was from HK... 

[chezzy]

Shipping time might also include handling time? I know when I am setting up listings I can nominate a 'domestic handling time' from same day or 1 business day right up to 20 business days. This would be on top of any shipping time.

[audistarelectronics]

Just might add, why would any business that wishes to hold Aust stock, hold it in the least likely state that the buyers would be in?

Surely the southern states would have the larger percentage of buyers, meaning much easier postage services and cheaper. Unless they are selling equipment that is common only to the NT, highly unlikely. More likely just another fib regarding location, and a stupid one at that, at least make the location ''Melbourne" such as a few of the phone sellers do.

[cq_tech]

Perhaps the reason that the "Australian" listing is 2.5x more expensive is to cover the additional cost of priority air mail from China to the buyer? That would explain how the seller can claim a delivery time of only 6-9 days instead of the more usual 15-30 days.

[extra-keen]

In my view the most important thing to be aware of is any return address location. Should the item being purchased be found faulty, it costs an arm and a leg to return overseas with Australia Post.

To be on the safe side, find out what the return address is - if it is overseas, then personally I'd be steering clear and buying local wherever possible. Could save a lot of $'s and heart ache as well.

If the return address is in Australia - then the item most likely is warehoused within Australia.

[audistarelectronics]

If the return details are an aussie airport, as in a phone dealer using Melbourne as a point, it is obviously off shore and don't touch it.

[annies_fancy_dress]

It's up buyers to try and keep on top of this.

Unfortunately it's one of the things E-Bay can't control.

E-Bay offers an online venue for separate sellers, they can't catch every lie that's put on listings by unscrupulous sellers.

[digital*ghost]

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@audistarelectronics wrote:

Just might add, why would any business that wishes to hold Aust stock, hold it in the least likely state that the buyers would be in?

Surely the southern states would have the larger percentage of buyers, meaning much easier postage services and cheaper. Unless they are selling equipment that is common only to the NT, highly unlikely. More likely just another fib regarding location, and a stupid one at that, at least make the location ''Melbourne" such as a few of the phone sellers do.

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Well, that would depend on a number of things - what the item is, if postage costs would actually vary if they have further to travel (for a lot of things it doesn't matter if you post within the same state or the furthest distance, cost is identical), whether it's more economical for stock to land in NT and be stored there (many of mine that I mentioned which are shipped here and then repackaed do so via Perth).

There are a lot of things that are based in NT for logistical reasons, I'm sure some of them are even businesses that post Australia-wide. 

[jun_watarase]

So i bought an item that was listed as being in Darwin, Australia. Shipping time was listed as 5-9 days.

It's the 8th day today and there is no sign of the package, seller won't provide a tracking number even though shipping method was listed as Australia Parcel Post which automatically provides a tracking number, and is now claiming the item was shipped by "airmail" and may take 15-35 days...