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How to avoid using amazon for shipping
I am very frustrated with sellers sending items by Amazon. The reason I use eBay is to avoid using Amazon. I have noticed this trend in the last year so it must be a new policy because I never had to worry about asking who the seller is using to ship.
I have started asking sellers before I buy if they will ship by USPS but that doesn't always work.
Very frustrated.
2 comments
eburtonlab
Mentor3 weeks ago@uofuman
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.
mudshark61369
Mentor3 weeks ago@uofuman ,
Many eBay sellers either also sell on Amazon, or store their stock with them and have them pull the orders, pack and ship the items. They use one of two Amazon services Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) or Multi Channel Fulfillment (MCF). Both allow higher volume ebay and other site sellers to shift the logistics to Amazon, which is a benefit for the little guy.
To find out more about the services, search online for:
"What is the difference between Amazon's FBA and MCF services".
What is absolutely not allowed by eBay or Amazon, is listing an item for sale on eBay, then once a buyer pays for the item, using their Prime account to purchase the item and having it shipped to you, which is known as retail arbitrage. Those items will come with an "A Gift For You" receipt. However some sellers using FBA have checked a box that sends a Gift receipt instead of a cash register type receipt, as it allows a return directly through Amazon, instead of sending an item back to the seller and them having to adding it back to their stored stock.