Sellers lying as to their location Why hasn't ebay done something about this ebay is complicit

[karen_karpet]

eBay is a humongous organization with millions of transactions happening around the globe every day. The staff are kept very busy dealing with disputes, scammers and making  “improvements” to the site. I believe sellers lying about their location isn’t very high on their priority list as eBay still makes a lot of money from them. 
If you don’t wish to buy from overseas sellers, I would recommend not buying from anyone with a capital city as their location. I’ve noticed sellers who state their location as “MELBOURNE” or “SYDNEY” are very often in China. But if it’s a the name of an Australian suburb, it’s usually legit in that suburb. 

[countessalmirena]

@591dawnb,

I agree that it's not unreasonable for a buyer on eBay to think that the filter "Australia only" would show items that are in Australia only. You are not the first to comment upon this on the boards. However, for as long as I can remember, that filter has "misfunctioned" if we regard Australia only as ... Australia only.

Just-in-time and eBay's definition of In Australia

The reason for this is that eBay regards "in Australia" in terms of the manufacturing/supply system called just-in-time fulfilment. You've probably heard or read about this during the last years, when supply chains have been globally disrupted, resulting in components not being available for local assembly, goods not being available because of delivery delays, and so on. Just-in-time works on the assumption that what's needed can be supplied just before supply becomes a problem (or just in time) without the need for storing things that are not immediately needed. It's more and more apparent just how shortsighted this is, but that's a topic for another soapbox.

In eBay terms, if items are being manufactured in China or elsewhere/similar, and some of them might be in Australia at the time of listing, that's in Australia. If a Chinese seller does have some items in a logistics company's warehouse in Australia, or has items ready to go (perhaps ready to be picked up by a courier in China, or on the wharves, or whatever), or the items are already on the way on pallets aboard ships, or the items were ever in Australia and just might be in some Schrödinger's Warehouse theory... if they could be, just possibly, either in Australia or once were in Australia or are going to be in Australia or are on the way to Australia or might be going to be on the way to Australia, in terms of just-in-time, they are in Australia.

 

The Australia only filter and seller's country of registration

That is why you will see items that are not physically and actually in Australia still appearing under the Australia only filter.

There isn't any way to filter out those items, because there isn't any way to filter out sellers who are not registered in Australia. Quite literally, the only way to be sure that your seller is registered in Australia is to check the feedback profile page for your seller.

Quite a few buyers use item price filters to rule out the most obvious listings that are almost certainly not in Australia. That is, work out the RRP of the items for which you're looking, bring your minimum price to, say, no lower than 70% or 80% of that (or whatever seems like a reasonable "good price" for the particular item), and voilà; a lot of items listed by sellers who are clearly not in Australia are removed from the search results.

 

Can't eBay give buyers the tools to filter out those sellers?

Of course eBay could do that - but they won't. eBay have strong reasons for wanting to maintain their hard-won presence in China, for instance, and Chinese sellers have incredible listing fee structures and enticements and tools available to them on eBay which are definitely not offered to Australian sellers, precisely because of eBay's history in China. (I've posted in some detail about this on these boards.)

But it's incredibly annoying!

Yes, but... many buyers on eBay buy on the basis of what's the cheapest, without regard for brand, warranty, genuineness, Australian specifications and standards, quality assurance, safety, supporting local business, security of supply, and all of the other issues that come with purchasing from these sellers.

Bluntly, buyers perpetutate this issue. If they didn't buy from (for example) Chinese eBay sellers, especially from those selling cheap knock-offs and unbranded stuff, we wouldn't be seeing the flood of listings / items by those sellers on eBay (and elsewhere).

96% is not good???

The feedback score can be extremely misleading. You'd certainly think that 96% is fantastic. In a physics exam, I'd be happier with 100% (of course) but would accept anything above 95% as extremely good.

However, you'd be comparing apples and durian fruit. The context of the 96% is important. In an exam, it's worked out quite simply; you have a question, and you answer it. To the extent that the answer is correct, you'd get full marks for that question, or a partial mark, or no marks. The examiner won't fail to take some questions into account, or run out of time to be able to mark some parts of your exam, or be able to get your wrong marks or correct marks reversed for some questions.

In an eBay seller's feedback score, the following things affect that percentage:

• some buyers who aren't entirely happy will not leave feedback, feeling that the item was cheap enough so the fact that it's not wonderful would be petty;
• some buyers will leave positive feedback based upon instant visual or immediate use of the item - and that is precisely when a knock-off or cheaply-made fake with less capacity or fewer functions or nice exterior with under-the-hood problems emerging after a few months will be most likely to seem okay;
• some buyers will wait for their item to arrive, and wait... and finally realise that they've been strung along by the seller with all sorts of excuses until it's too late to leave feedback or open a refund request under eBay's MBG;
• some buyers will leave negative feedback, but the seller is able to have it removed;
• some buyers will change their negative feedback upon the promise of a partial refund or other inducement;
• some Chinese eBay sellers (as an example) will have multiple eBay accounts ready to shuffle around, so that if one starts to smell rotten (with negatives), another is ready to go, and the first account will be rested until the negatives have fallen off the feedback percentage;
• feedback can be "topped up" by buying cheap items so that the negatives as a seller aren't so obvious at the average glance; and...
• the usual etceteras.

High volume sellers with a small overall percentage of negatives would actually have a great many dissatisfied customers, numbering in the 100s. It is even more of a problem if the negatives reflect big-ticket items and the positives are for the smallest and cheapest items that easily attract a quick positive by buyers. There is no way in which eBay reflects any such pattern in feedback scores.

Most buyers posting on these boards would probably agree with me that 99.5% is the lowest acceptable feedback score in a high volume seller. There are always exceptions, but keep that sort of figure in mind as a guide, at least.

So other platforms are better than eBay?

It's a moot point. Some other platforms don't offer much insight into sellers at all, certainly not enough to enable the buyer to filter out results from sellers not actually in Australia. I don't find eBay an awful venue, but I acknowledge its faults. Use eBay to suit your needs, and if it doesn't suit your needs, look at other marketplaces/sites/platforms. Generally speaking, I take advantage of eBay discount codes and offers if they are made when I want to buy something, and if they apply to what I want to buy.

There are eBay tools available to you as a buyer that can help you to find good deals from respected sellers, and if you use those tools, you should have good buying experiences on eBay if that's what you wish.

Other posts of relevance:

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Buying/Seller-Member-pretends-to-be-local-in-whatever-country-you-l...

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Buying/Ebay-seller-false-advertisement-of-stock-available/m-p/22039...

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/How-many-sellers-have-had-a-gut-full-of-chinese-sellers-lyi...

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Buying/I-bought-an-item-It-didnt-arrive-Seller-provided-a-fake-trac...

[janeababe]

One of the main issues here, and I see it repeatedly, is that folk think by ticking Australia Only, it refers to the seller’s actual location.. It does not! 
It refers to the item location. (See my screenshot)

A seller who drop ships, or has a warehouse in Australia, but who is registered in China, or wherever, will still have their items come up in the search, and often, they are sponsored listings, so scroll through your first couple of pages, before getting to Real Aussies Sellers with Real Aussie based stock. (That doesn’t mean that the item hasn’t originally come from China though, let’s face it! 😉) 

EBay is an online reject shop as far as I’m concerned. 

[591dawnb]

Wow, some very interesting answers here folks and I thank you for the positive and detailed answers I see. My take home message is -

• Ticking "Australia Only" is not, in any way a guarantee the goods shown are in Australia.
• The screen shown when you click to get more info about a seller shows where the seller is located, not the goods. If the seller is in eg China, you must be aware of the risk that the goods are too.
• Delivery times may be an indicator that the goods are in Australia but an unreliable one.
• Look for sellers with 99% positive !
• If a delivery takes a long time between order and Australia Post getting it, provide feed back.
• Feedback is the only lever we can pull to try and help these sorts of situations.

And try not to  treat genuine Australian sellers and overseas sellers with an Australian Warehouse unfairly.

Thanks again folks, some very useful information provided and quite a lot of effort put into documenting important issues.

Davo

[springyzone]

Yes, 'Australia only' items that really aren't have been a problem on ebay for years.

To me, it would help if seller location was shown on the main ad, maybe straight under 'item location'.

After all, although most items here are imported anyway, some of us at least would prefer to support a seller located in Australia.

One of the main problems is, as you pointed out, that casual buyers on ebay are unlikely to know about or even think to investigate seller location. It's not that it is hard to do but it is another click and many buyers rely on the information in an ad to be accurate. Nope, you can't trust it.

As for the % positive feedback. I would ever so slightly disagree with the 99% rating. Again, most casual buyers would most likely regard anything over 90% as pretty good (which unfortunately it generally isn't). My advice would be to click on the feedback number of any seller you are potentially interested in buying from, and then click on their negatives and neutrals. Have a quick read to see if the same problems seem to come up time and again.

I have sometimes bought from high volume sellers (usually located in Aust though) with feedbacks of eg 98% and have had really good experiences but I knew their main problem was not having immediate stock.

As I was not in a tearing hurry I was prepared to take the risk, but I was also fully prepared to give a neg if they messed me around. This was on smaller priced sales.

With a  small volume seller, their % can go down a lot even with one neg comment so it is worth seeing that comment because some negs that buyers give are just ridiculous. The one that always sticks in my mind is from years ago when one buyer spluttered that the 0.3mm width ribbon they bought was ridiculously thin, not even 1 cm wide.😁 I've bought from casual low volume sellers with feedback ratings that were only about 89%, but I could see they were brought down by a couple of unreasonable buyers.

So have a quick read of the negs & neutrals and then you are in a better position to know if it is worth the risk or not.

[vickea12]

I'm just seeing this 2 years later (after Googling) - thank you soooo much Countessa for an exemplary lesson on the subject!!!

Just brilliant and I'm now much better informed about this. Thanks also to the others that have contributed to this thread.

Now. Do you have a similar lesson on Google searches which seem to be less and less relevant these days? 😀

Thanks again!

[countessalmirena]

@vickea12, if I could do anything impressive with google searches, I’d be leaping more joyfully than the ten lords a-leaping…!

I use the usual quotation marks for terms I specifically want included, minus signs to exclude certain terms… It was more effective even one year ago, and lately it’s apparent that some relevant pages simply don’t appear in the search results, even when the page/site owner doesn’t have any no-follow command and has properly submitted the site’s pages to be indexed.

I have a theory as to why, but no solution. I do suspect the use of AI, which in my view creates nonspecific and muddily amorphous results.

Actually… one thing you can do: when you find an interesting or useful page/site, bookmark it into neatly arranged folders for easy retrieval later. You may never find that site again without doing this…!

[goodtucker18]

U believe it. They have just lost me as customer due to so called policy   I was seeking paranormal help from someone l have bought from. They would not that letter through. I wrote it twice. They deleted it twice. They are the biggest frauds out there. After looking losing millions of dollars. They are going to lose a **bleep**load more !!!!!!!!

[goodtucker18]

I just gave up eBay as they are nothing less than ruthless!

[repentatleisure1952]

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@goodtucker18 wrote:

I just gave up eBay as they are nothing less than ruthless!

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"ruthless" in what way?