The “within Australia” does not filter to the sellers who are in Australia – but rather to items listed on eBay.com.au. Unfortunately that does not exclude all of those Chinese sellers in particular who specifically list on eBay.com.au, to the point of often overwhelming the genuine local listings.
Looking at item location within the listing can also be misleading. Chinese sellers (and similar) are permitted to put an Australian location on the basis of “just-in-time fulfilment”, so the goods might be in a warehouse in Dandenong (owned by the logistics company with whom they deal), or on the docks being unloaded, or on a pallet on board a ship on the way here, or being loaded in the ports in China, or in the factory in China, or part of the next batch being manufactured, or at the airport in Shanghai being loaded into the cargo hold, or in the air, or at Sydney Airport being unloaded, or in Customs, or in a truck on the way to the logistics warehouse, or being handed over to local couriers for delivery…
So - in essence, item location if the item is being sold by Chinese sellers (or similar) has become essentially meaningless.
It’s also essentially meaningless if the seller is registered in Australia but does not physically own any of the items they’re selling - if they’re drop-shipping from China (for instance). Checking seller registration in that case will show the seller’s registration in Australia… but there’ll be other indications that the items are being drop-shipped. The negative feedback comments will show consistent patterns about items coming from China, taking longer to arrive, the quality being cheap/fake, etc…
I start from the premise that if new items are a lot cheaper than I’d expect to pay for the genuine article in Australia, it’s probably not genuine. Look at the brand field; if it says “unbranded”, it’s an obvious giveaway. That can contradict the “key words” used in the title, so don’t be fooled just by title.
Fakes are not just cheaper because the buyer isn’t paying the actual designer/maker — it’s cheaper because the workmanship is the bare minimum to make the item look like the genuine thing, and function basically like the genuine thing on first examining it. Those using such items find over time that the functions degrade, or it doesn’t have the capacity claimed, etc., because the raw materials are not of the required specification to perform as required. It won’t be safe to use over time (as the item could fail at any time and explode or burst into flames), and its manufacture is not required to pass any quality control or meet any Australian standards. Why should a small factory owner in China (or a small business sending knockoffs to gullible Australians) worry about meeting Australian standards? They can’t be held to account by Australian consumer legislation.
Often slave labour is involved.
That’s focusing just upon electrical items. Need I go into any detail about carcinogenic dyes and treatments in the production of textiles?
Don’t expect incredible bargains on eBay. Genuine brand names with warranties, quality, etc., will be in a similar price range with some being a really good deal but not an absurdly good deal. Sometimes there are eBay discounts that make it even better.
