Item location: 连云港 or 香港 (It's ok, I can't read it either)

[godspeedpluto]

Has anyone had issues with items appearing in different locations depending on which version of the eBay site they are using? 

Last night I won an auction I'd been watching on the eBay Android App on my phone. The item was showing as being located in Hong Kong (in Roman characters), however when I went to my computer to pay for the item the ebay.com.au description showed "连云港", but thanks to Google Translate, I can see that this is "Lianyungang", which is roughly 1,700kms north (big difference in shipping time). My only guess may be that the Android App uses the location of the "site" where the seller is registered ie. ebay.com.hk? Either way there's a lot of conflicting information, because when I check the item on the ebay.com site it shows as "香港", which is Hong Kong.

It's not a big deal for me and I'm in no hurry for the item, but if I was a seller located in Lianyungang and eBay was telling everyone I was Hong Kong I'd be a bit frustrated because it could make for plenty of complaints on shipping time.

So my question is two-fold:

1. Can a seller change the item location after an auction has ended, and if so would this show as a revision?

2. Is anyone else finding the item location being listed in non-Roman characters confusing and potentially misleading?

Any ideas/information/observations are welcome 🙂

[digital*ghost]

So my question is two-fold:

1. Can a seller change the item location after an auction has ended, and if so would this show as a revision?

2. Is anyone else finding the item location being listed in non-Roman characters confusing and potentially misleading?

Any ideas/information/observations are welcome 🙂

The item location is entered by the seller, and it can't be changed once a listing has ended (or if an auction, has a bid on it), and AFAIK it should show as a revision if it was changed while the listing was active.

One of the recent changes proposed by ebay is that the item location displayed is dependent on a postcode entered by the seller, not a typed location as it used to be (resulting often in nonsensical or blank locations). If ebay can validate the postcode entered (apparently applicable for US, UK, Australia, Germany, Austria and China), all the details are filled in by eBay. It may be that the app hasn't been updated to recognise and/or validate the information, and will display another location pulled from other data (eg the registered site, as you suggested). 

I don't personally feel item locations displayed in non-Roman characters misleading, only ones that turn out to be false (in saying that, I don't generally translate locations written in other languages, so I wouldn't even know if they have attempted to mislead me, I just presume 'overseas' if it's written in Chinese ;\ ).

[godspeedpluto]

The item location is entered by the seller, and it can't be changed once a listing has ended (or if an auction, has a bid on it), and AFAIK it should show as a revision if it was changed while the listing was active.

Thanks for clearing that up, I'd would have thought it would show as a revision too. I wasn't suspecting the seller had done anything misleading in this case and after looking at their current and ended listings they're all in the same place. The confusion came from the item location being different depending on which site you viewed it on.

I guess because I buy mostly fossil and mineral samples, a lot of these are sold directly from the areas they are collected (so in the case of China, this can mean some pretty remote locations). I've made a habit of translating the location more to give me an idea on how long they will take to arrive, so it's more of an inconvenience than anything else.

With regard to translating non-Roman characters though, it's just an extra step to safeguard yourself from potentially buying an item located in 我的想象 (my imagination) or 外空 (outer space). I guess this is what the validated postcode idea is hoping to correct, sounds great to me 🙂

Oh, and I'm not making the "outer space" one up, I actually did purchase a meteorite fragment from a seller in China who used this as an item location. I thought it was hilarious (turned out to be a great specimen too), their actual location was in the item description, but you've gotta love a sense of humour though 😉

[digital*ghost]

I guess I should revise my assumptions to "somewhere in this solar system"  :^O

I can see why item location can be important in those circumstances, though. Not much of what I buy would change if it were located or sourced elsewhere, so I've never really given it much attention. 

[godspeedpluto]

Not to mention "somewhere in this solar system" would make for a far more entertaining "my eBay" page...

Seller's Log, Stardate 9872.1: Women's pink and blue dress: Item marked as posted from ~27,000±1,000ly

But I agree, for most things it's no biggie. In my mind buying anything online = it's probably gonna take a while, and if it's coming from overseas, it'll probably take a bit longer than that. My question was prompted more by database intrigue than anything else (database location: magical kingdom of eBay).

[the_hawk*]

The seller may be using the Maidenhead Grid Square Locator as a way to confuse buyers about their location.

But it is very real, you all live in predefined grid square