Bought on eBay Shipped by Amazon😡

Question

My Family canceled Amazon Prime and is shopping on eBay to avoid supporting Amazon.
Much to our dismay, the last three items we purchased here seems to have been delivered directly from Amazon.
Please advise, Mrs B

eastlaneave · Answer

@401mrsb

I know exactly how you feel. I prefer to avoid those sellers, too.

To add on to the prior tips, here are mine.

Here are some tips to find a seller with their own inventory

✓ Look for a photo that appears the seller took, it may not be perfect.

✓ Look for a photo that doesn't match every other seller's photos

✓ Look for a description that doesn't look like a copy and paste from Amazon

✓ Look for an experienced seller with feedback above 1000

✓ Ask the seller if their inventory is on-hand, or ask them a question about the item

Some things are easier to see on desktop

Click the feedback number and then scroll down and click "See All Feedback"

It will say

Member since: xxxx in United States

This is different than the ship from in the listing.

Overseas sellers often drop ship from Amazon or Walmart

✓ Look at where the seller is registered. Preferably someone in USA or Canada

✓ Look at the feedback, read any negatives - sometimes someone else has said 'drop ship from Amazon'

Where the seller is registered is pretty important, just hard to explain how to find it. Sellers in Israel and China in particular seem to often be drop-shipping.

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-- eBay Seller policy on drop shipping.

Drop shipping, where a seller fulfill orders directly from a wholesale supplier, is allowed on eBay.

However, listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace (Ex Amazon, Walmart) that ships directly to your customer is NOT allowed on eBay.

-- Here is a help page where you can learn more: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/shipping-items/setting-shipping-options/drop-shipping?id=4176

If you as the buyer get your item along with a gift receipt in Amazon Prime packaging, that seller is violating eBay rules, and in addition to returning the item, you can report the seller. Return the item first, then do the report.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/resolving-issues-sellers/reporting-item-issue-seller?id=4022

Report here: https://www.ebay.com/help/action?topicid=4022

- The seller has violated one of eBay’s policies

- Other

- Then type a short message that says

1) Item was received in Amazon packaging with a Gift Receipt

2) Seller is violating drop shipping policy by listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from Amazon to ship directly to me.

A short message with just those phrases is enough. The initial report will be read by a computer, so the exact phrases matter.

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There are some sellers who have inventory at Amazon and at their home. They aren't violating the policy. The key to know if it's a problem is if you get a gift receipt in the package.

Thank you for shopping eBay, most of us are truly small sellers with our own inventory. I hope you stick around.

eburtonlab · Answer

@401mrsb

It may not be possible to always identify in advance those sellers who drop-ship, but it is possible to identify some common characteristics of illicit retail drop-shippers or other under-performing sellers, and thus avoid the worst of them.

Often they can be spotted by a combination of low feedback number, free shipping of heavy items where it would not be profitable to use retail shipping, use of stock photos, high handling time (not necessarily if they are using Amazon or Walmart, though), poor feedback received with complaints of delays and wrong items or out of stock cancellations, very odd item selection and/or quantities like items were chosen at random from a catalog, canned item descriptions scraped from another site that exactly match many other similar listings, differences between registration location on the feedback page and item location (or vague item location -- like "US, United States"), or inability to answer even basic questions about the items being sold.

jacbarcollectibles · Answer

Some eBay sellers are also Amazon sellers and use their fulfillment service to send their eBay orders. This is fully eBay legal. What would not be allowed by eBay is if the seller took your order and found an Amazon seller to purchase from and send the item to you. You can tell if this happened by the gift receipt in the package. So if you see a gift receipt in the package you can report the seller to eBay.