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....

[mwilliames]

Yes i just caught with the exact same thing. All same details you have mentioned. Mine was Darwin too and the same shipping agent. I can see your coment is from 3 years ago. I have complained to Ebay. i sure others have too. Why arent Ebay doing anything about it. As an Australian seller it makes me angry that they can get away with it. Any now i have also been duped on the price i paid as i was wanting it quickly so i purchased from "an Australian seller".

[gaby2567]

I've experienced exactly the same issue - I purchased an item, especially needed for Christmas, from Darwin at 3 x the cost of the same item from China.

The item was sent on 7 December (supposedly from Darwin) and it is yet to arrive in Sydney. 

I would agree that non-Australian sellers are misrepresenting themselves.

[crammondmusic]

Yeah. Ive seen heaps of items listed as Darwin that I dont believe are located in Darwin. If they are Darwin must be the secret manufacturing capital of Australia.........

[crammondmusic]

There's lots of things eBay should be on to but are not. I'm waiting on a pair of earrings from Korea that I ordered on the 12th November! I buy quite a few things on eBay and i know that the expected date on this item has been changed. It now shows as 6 Jan.

2 months to send and receive a pair of earrings???? How is it coming? By pigeon?

Sellers always blame shipping, or Australia Post, yet I can order an item 2 weeks ago from Hong Kong and get it in 10 days, so mail is clearly not being held up at this end.

eBay says that there is no way sellers can change the estimated date as it is based on mailing standards to Australia etc. What they didnt say was that this expected date is controlled by eBay itself and it changes daily based on mail and shipping information. Its fine in theory save for a couple of things. 1) They have altered my contract with the seller without notifying me and without my permission. 2) It prevents me from opening a case for a refund until after the 6th of Jan. 3) Given that this date is changed daily it is feasible that a case will never be able to be opened since the date just gets changed and changed and changed.

The other big thing they need to investigate is sellers trying to blackmail the buyers into leaving positive feedback in order to receive a refund. I have had a couple of Chinese sellers say that they will refund me if I change my negative feedback. I wont do it because other buyers should see the real story of the seller. In this case I just open a refund case through either eBay or Paypal. I actually had one seller who sent me the wrong sized item ask me to accept 25% of the price of the time plus an extra 1 Euro if I changed my negative feedback!!!!!!

eBay's standards are really slipping now.

[*tippy*toes*]

If you are still looking at the original listing, the date is going to change every day and it has nothing to do with any kind of manipulation. If something hasn't arrived when you think it should, open a PayPal dispute. Bypass eBay altogether. You can open a PayPal dispute any time. Often Asian sellers send by sea, which can take 2-3 months.

Clearly you've never sold anything. Once a seller posts an item, they have NO control over how long it takes to arrive. Sellers are not carrier pidgeons. If the postal company is slow to deliver, that is their problem, not the seller. Yet, you regularly blame sellers for how long it takes something to arrive. The estimate dates in a listing are just that. An estimate. They are not a guarantee. EBay set those dates, sellers have absolutely no control over them. If a seller posts within their handling time, they shouldn't be punished by you for how long the postal company takes to deliver.

If you're going to continue to buy cheap carp from Asian countries, you have to accept that sometimes things get held until there is a full container load. That's how some sellers are able to offer you free postage. Or did you really think free postage meant no-one had to pay for it? Given it is winter up there, often things get held up due to bad weather.

[crammondmusic]

Thanks for the response. Its obvilously a sellers point of view. My answer is if you cant fulfil the promise, dont sell on eBay.

If a seller offers free postage or not this doesnt affect the expected date on the item. If free postage means that an item is going to be weeks later than the expected date then explain this in the description of the item.

I've had items where the description clearly states 30-45 days normal delivery time but the item doesnt arrive until well after the 45 days. Now this may be due to international mails as you say, but how can a different item from the same country arrive well within the estimated days when its shipped at the same time as the first item? This would rule out international mail issues wouldnt it??

As a buyer I frankly dont care how you sellers have to ship an item to save money. A smart seller should build in a shipping cost on a 'free shipping' item. If you dont, then its your loss. Dont penalise the buyer.

I always find it amusing that eBay sellers get so indignant when we question long delivery times. They forget that there are lots of other places I can buy from these days - Wish, Etsy, etc.. They can all manage to ship quickly and often for free. eBay needs a bit of competition to lift their standards.

And yes, I can buy cheap goods at these sights as well. Difference is they actually arrive.

[crammondmusic]

By the way, I buy 'cheap **bleep**' because thats what the majority of Asian sellers make. It makes no difference if I buy an item for 50 cents, 50 dollars or 500 dollars. These transactions are all covered under Australian law. An important point that many sellers overlook.

[lyndal1838]

Yes, Tippy is a seller, but I am not and I agree with every word she has said.

If ebay is not to your liking and other sites suit you, then I suggest you might be happier to buy from them.

[*tippy*toes*]

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@crammondmusic wrote:

By the way, I buy 'cheap **bleep**' because thats what the majority of Asian sellers make. It makes no difference if I buy an item for 50 cents, 50 dollars or 500 dollars. These transactions are all covered under Australian law. An important point that many sellers overlook.

---

How do you figure that? Because it says so in the postage section? Maybe you need to read up on Australian consumer law. Many sellers don't overlook it. For many sellers ACL doesn't apply to them, myself included. Why I hear you ask? Because those sellers, including myself are private sellers, not business sellers, so ACL doesn't apply. It only applies to those who are registered as a business. On eBay, you'll see it on their feedback page and often under their ID on a description page "This seller is a business seller" or something to that effect.

I'd also like to ask your expert advice on how a seller can factor in postage system delays. Clearly you know something we don't, so please, help us out here will you, because I know of many sellers on this forum who would love to know how to control the postage system and know ahead of time about delays, like truck crashes, sinking ships, crashing planes, so we can factor it into the delivery estimate that we have absolutely no control over. Please?

[davewil1964]

I want to know how Australian buyers are covered by ACL for items they purchase from overseas.I can just imagine the local Office of Fair Trading pursuing a Chinese seller.

The buyers are, in effect, importers, anyway. Not strictly purchasers.