Australia in the name but not local sellers

[zanadoo_56]

Not China this time but the plethora of UK sellers of books and music.

While I have got used to treating high volume sellers with AU in their name with some suspicion, I have been also dismayed at some of the terrible feedback from many of these sellers.  High volume they may be, but any company that has managed to rack up over 500 disgruntled customers in just ONE month won't be having me as a customer.

Despite the implication that they are Australian, I've wondered what to do when in fect there are no local sellers of a particular book or CD or record I am looking for.  Cross your fingers and choose one with a lot of negative feedback or look elsewhere (ie completely off eBay)?  Sometimes they are the only source, worst luck.

Buying on eBay shouldn't be a lottery that maybe things will go OK when buying from these NON local sellers who handle high volume sales.  Sigh.

[davewil1964]

At least one of them claimed, when they started up, that they were based here. I bought a book from them - it arrived in better than advertised condition and within a week. But they certainly have many less than gruntled buyers regarding timeliness and condition. And OOS.

BUT, all those foreign sellers' goods show as located in the UK. Or USA as the case may be. Not really deceptive.

[digital*ghost]

Sellers like that usually have the country code in the name of a specific ID because they have several, and each one lists on a specific website - so, in the case of a book seller for example, one ID will be bookseller-au, another will be bookseller-uk, and so on.

I dare say they do this mostly to keep track of things (i.e. such large sellers probably still funnel all noticiations and so forth through to the one channel, and having [business name] + listing site is better for them than coming up with different IDs for each one (especially if they have multiple staff members and / or high turnover in that area, as then it adds an extra thing to memorise or look up rather than just have it explicitly obvious on communications from eBay). I'm sure they're also aware that it can cause a little confusion, or other problems, with / for buyers, and it wouldn't surprise me if the fact that it often will be post-sale is seen as a bonus. 

[zanadoo_56]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

Sellers like that usually have the country code in the name of a specific ID because they have several, and each one lists on a specific website - so, in the case of a book seller for example, one ID will be bookseller-au, another will be bookseller-uk, and so on.

I dare say they do this mostly to keep track of things (i.e. such large sellers probably still funnel all noticiations and so forth through to the one channel, and having [business name] + listing site is better for them than coming up with different IDs for each one (especially if they have multiple staff members and / or high turnover in that area, as then it adds an extra thing to memorise or look up rather than just have it explicitly obvious on communications from eBay). I'm sure they're also aware that it can cause a little confusion, or other problems, with / for buyers, and it wouldn't surprise me if the fact that it often will be post-sale is seen as a bonus. 

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Maybe sellers do this for the reasons you said, but when they put the country name in full I think it is (initially at least) misleading.

That high turnover is also probably what accounts for the terrible feedback.  Anyway, I have had to give up on buying the item I want on eBay for the moment.  My  usual off eBay sources are no help either at the moment (except one where the postage is astronomical).  It's not available locally and the UK sellers that have it also have too much bad feedback.  I'll leave it for a while and try again in a few months. I'm patient....I can wait. 🙂