Item advertised as "located in US"

Question

It seem that recently lots of things I buy on Ebay are listed as "US Sellers w/ 2-4 day delivery". This item was listed as being located in Mankato, MN with a 2-4 day delivery and was ordered on November 5 (Nov 7-9 delivery). It is now November 11.

Shipping
Free 2-4 day shipping
Standard Shipping

Location
Mankato, Minnesota, United States

You have printed a shipping label but the shipper has not received the item.

velocity-mc.com · Answer

The seller has a 5 star rating for Shipping and a the negative comments don't mention slow shipping.

However, many things I buy lately show "SHIPPING LBL CREATED USPS AWAITS ITEM" and there is no progress for a long time. When I ask about the item availability, I get a non responsive reply that indicates the seller is ignoring and/or not understanding my message.

Sometimes I need the item by a specific date and if it is not received, it is useless to me (projects that have a specific completion date). When I report this to Ebay, I get a message to wait 3 days, then report it, than wait 10 days for Ebay to act. During those 10 days I get messages from Ebay to close the request.

It seems like checking the "item location" should be automated and very easy for Ebay to act on. Amazon does it because they control distribution at an incredible cost. Ebay's distribution cost them nothing and they do not make ANY effort to be competitive or a apples to apples "value proposition" with Amazon.

This will backfire on them.

mudshark61369 · Answer

@velocity-mc.com , Do you check each seller's feedback profile page before buying from one? If not then you will probably keep running into this problem. Because many chinese sellers are registered in the U.S. it can be hard to determine if they really ship from here. There may be indications on listing pages, or on a feedback profile page that can tel you if a seller is actually a U.S. based one or not. Below is a list of things I use to weed out foreign sellers. If you search using Price: Lowest or Best Match you are very likely to see items from China based sellers first. I search using Time: ending soonest or Newly listed. On Listing pages: Items priced below brand named prices. An item location address that does not give a city and state Ex: USA / United States, New Jersey / USA The use of U.S. flag symbols and several mentions of being a U.S. seller. Seller's username sometimes. Selling items listed by many other sellers, often using the same stock photos. High volume seller with a feedback percentage below 98.6% Item descriptions that have wording in them that doesn't seem like it was written by a person whose first language is English. Item titles giving a brand name, and photos showing a brand name label, but in the Item Specifics it says Brand: Unknown or no brand given. Items for sale with no name or an unrecognizable Brand Name. The use of metric and standard measurements. Photos with Asian models in them. On a Feedback profile page: The seller's country of registry, sometimes. High volume seller registered between 2012 and now. All or most feedback is for Private listings. Hundreds of neutral and negative feedback. Some may still have a percentage over 99% Neutral and Negative feedback saying items came from China. That took a long time to arrive. Missing items from multiple quantity orders. Cancelled purchases. Poor communications. Clothing smaller in size than normal. Many mentions of poor quality items. (click on the numbers of neutral and negative feedback received, to read only those comments). Responses to negative feedback written by someone whose first language does not appear to be English. It may take a little time to use the above lists, but after a while it becomes second nature, and in the long run can save time and possibly money. Since I created the lists, getting to a sellers feedback profile page has become harder than just clicking on their feedback number. Now you have to: Scroll way down a listing page until you see the seller's username in a large font. Under it will be a few comments, and under that a See All Feedback button. Click on it. On the page that opens you will see the following line above some comments. Click on the switch back to classic view. That will show you the box with the number's of neutral and negative feedback a seller has received, which can be clicked on to read only those comments.