Buy It Now Question

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I would like to buy one of my items, which I would like to then forward as a complimentary gift to a relative to (hopefully) encourage her to buy from me in the future.

Would anyone know if this is OK on Ebay for BIN items, as I could not find the answer in the Ebay Support Section.

Thank you in advance,

Kind regards

Janet

[countessalmirena · Accepted solution]

Hi, Janet,

If you read through the Shill bidding policy, you'll see that someone you know can use Buy it now to purchase from you. (They cannot, however, bid on any auction listing of yours.)

The policy also states that "If you sell an item using a fixed price format, keep in mind that fixed price purchases can't be used to increase a member's Feedback ratings or search standing on eBay."

Furthermore, "Although a seller is allowed to have more than one eBay account, there can't be any interaction between the accounts, especially involving bids or Feedback. Your information also has to be accurate and consistent."

From this, it's clear that sellers cannot buy any of their own items on eBay.

Frankly, why would you want to do so? You'd actually lose money on the transaction, as you would have to pay eBay the final value fees. I would suggest just ending the listing of the item you want to give to your relative, and present it with your business card (if you have one), an invoice stating that it's a gift (and including on that invoice all the necessary information for your relative to buy from you on eBay), and whatever else you'd like to include. After all, until it's sold, it's your item to do with as you wish.

 To sum it up:

• You cannot bid on your auction-style listings.
• People who know you / whom you know cannot bid on your auction-style listings.
• If you have employees, they cannot bid on your auction-style listings.
• People who know you / whom you know can buy it now from your fixed-price listings.
• Employees can buy it now from your fixed-price listings.
• You cannot buy it now from your fixed-price listings.

[kopenhagen5]

I would think you simply end the listing and send the item to your friend.

Otherwise it could be seen as padding your feedback.

[enigmabear]

I was wondering  why you would need to 'buy it off yourself' on ebay rather than just give your friend the product

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much everyone for the replies and advice - I think I am quite clear about everything from the replies.

I only dropshop one or two items at the moment, and this was going to be one of them.  I thought it would be a good idea to send it out from the dropshipper to also get personal feedback from my sister about how the transaction went, as I do not trust dropshipping 100 percent, so it was going to be an exercise not only for marketing purposes, but  to see how reliable the dropshipper was as postage was also free, as opposed to me posting the item myself.

I will just buy it myself now independently (away from the Ebay site) and send it with some information (as suggested in the reply).  Regarding feedback, I definitely wasn.t going to go there as I knew that was a no no.

Thanks again for clarifying everyone - the information given in the above replies is as clear as a bell, and hope I haven/t panicked anyone unecessarily.

Best Regards

Janet

[padi*0409 · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I only dropshop one or two items at the moment, and this was going to be one of them.  I thought it would be a good idea to send it out from the dropshipper to also get personal feedback from my sister about how the transaction went, as I do not trust dropshipping 100 percent, so it was going to be an exercise not only for marketing purposes, but  to see how reliable the dropshipper was as postage was also free, as opposed to me posting the item myself.

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Be very careful of using drop-shipping, you are completely at the mercy of the reliability of the drop-shipper, many sellers have tried it and been burnt badly. This is even more of a problem now with eBay scrutinising delivery times.

You should also make it clear in the listing that you are using a drop-shipper - many buyers would expect you to have the items on hand, not farm the sale out to a 3rd party.

[imastawka]

Good point Padi.  This is very true.

The listings state I should have them in 4 - 5 days.   From Brisbane to Melbourne.

Via a dropshipper.  Hard to believe.

[Anonymous]

I agree mostly with everything that's been said about dropshipping so far.  Have been on Ebay for 15 years and up until recently 100% of stock sold by me, comes from me, from my premises and is sent by me and currently is at 99%.  The dropshipping model I've tried to incorporate on the side, and has been as mentioned reduced to being 1 item only (the dog bed).  I haven't been confident with it completely because, apart from dispatch times and declaring where they are shipped from, it's the quality of goods that I don't feel comfortable with.

Moreover, I find it "not quite true" that listings from the same generic dropshipper can be described by many other sellers in their descriptions, as being shipped from their "own dedicated warehouse/suppler - This is far from being true - more like Chinese imports." . It's a question of business ethics that I feel I will exit the dropshipping strategy.  Maybe it works better in the American market, or countries where there are large manufacturing bases with more reliable suppliers  - I don't know enough and I am not sure!