Selling to the US market from Australia

[imapirate4life]

Hello, i'm looking at selling T-Shirts and Apparel and most are probably more suitable to sell to the US market as primary target. Since my products are Print on Demand (technically drop shipping i guess?) and the manufacturer that prints the products is located in Los Angeles, i'm wondering if there will be any issues doing this setting the shipping from location to the US while using an eBay account created in Australia, of will i need to create just another eBay account?.

I think other platforms like Etsy may have some issues with this from what ive heard so i'm not too sure about eBay and if this is going to violate anything, and if i do set the listing as shipping from the US, will the item show up in search results normally when US users search for similar items.

Thanks.

[countessalmirena]

You’d best read up on Third Party Fulfilment T&Cs.

https://www.ebay.com.au/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/thirdparty-fulfilmen...

[gutterpunkz05]

Trouble ahead, you might get away with it for a short time, but I would expect it to be picked up by ebay very quickly, at which time you will need to provide proof that you own the stock prior to it being listed on ebay  and that the printer is holding this stock on your behalf.  You will also be required to produce a contract between yourself and the printer/shipper with particular reference to the security of ebay buyer info.

Have fun.

[imapirate4life]

ah....so eBay is not the best platform then? Because the company is just one of those printing companies like Monster Digital, Awkward Styles, etc that you make account with and upload a design and when someone orders it you then order it on their website and they make it and ship it. So would this still be considered as someone else holding inventory even though it hasnt technically been made until ordered? Im guessing so.

[gutterpunkz05]

I think you would have to prove that you are the actual owner of the garments, and they are held by the printer awaiting a chosen design to be added.  Ebay takes the guaranteed protection of buyers data/info very seriously, and there is also a requirement that packaging does not display or contain any third party info , again a contractual requirement.   

These boards have been littered with members wanting to know why their accounts have been temporarily restricted, which is usually followed by a permanent restriction or termination.

There is also the possibility that you could run into problems with ebays managed payments

[gutterpunkz05]

Simple solution would be to buy a quantity of garments printed with designs of your choice, list and ship your inventory as a basic seller and monitor what sells well and what does not.

Just to add, you might need to do some research on selling clothing internationally, it is a scammers market.

[springyzone]

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@imapirate4life wrote:

ah....so eBay is not the best platform then? Because the company is just one of those printing companies like Monster Digital, Awkward Styles, etc that you make account with and upload a design and when someone orders it you then order it on their website and they make it and ship it. So would this still be considered as someone else holding inventory even though it hasnt technically been made until ordered? Im guessing so.

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Okay, this is from the customer's viewpoint.

You're saying you would primarily expect most of your customers to be from USA and you're choosing a printing company from USA.

I presume you would be having the printing company ship it direct to the customer after they print it.

As a customer, I would be livid if I received a parcel from a printing company. And believe me, it WILL have their name somewhere on the packaging or inside on an order form.

It would make me feel stupid and ripped off. I bet the price you charge is dearer than if the person ordered direct from the printing company themselves.

Plus you'd cause confusion. The buyer would be wondering where their Australian parcel was.

We have seen this sort of thing go down before and definitely never goes down well.

If you want to sell something, you need to at least have it shipped to you first so you can rewrap it and post it when it sells.

[gutterpunkz05]

There is also the problem of a return address, as returns will be inevitable, and the printer/shipper in  99.9999% of cases will not act as your agent for receipt of returns, so you will be required to provide a return address which in most cases will be an Australian address.   You will be left with the option of abandoning the item with full refund, or paying for international return, which is likely incur a loss before processing a refund.

[domino-710]

I logged into eBay US.

Tshirts - good grief - there were only 6,300,000 listed.

Go for it.