Item locations in listings are inaccurate

Question

With several small automotive-type parts deals lately I've chosen to buy a somewhat more expensive item from sellers because the item's location (as listed New York or New Jersey) was shown as closer to my town in Maine figuring it would get here faster shipping wise. However, both times, the item has actually shipped from California and took longer than expected delivery dates from others. When I've asked the seller about the discrepancy they gave an excuse that they have "more than one warehouse." I smell **bleep**. In both cases there were several other sellers in California that showed up on search with lower buy-it-now prices and free shipping.

Where an item is located is a key factor in making a purchasing decision. How can eBay improve the accuracy of this.

eburtonlab · Answer

@maineguide

Probably the best way to deal with sellers that misrepresent item location is to avoid them whenever possible. The "US only" item location filter selects items that are listed as being in the United States; however, as you have seen, not every seller that lists items in the US ships from the US as they should. And not every US seller that shows a US location ships from that location.

Before ordering you should check the estimated delivery dates -- that is a good indication of how far away items actually ship from. Also, going to a seller's profile page or feedback page will tell you where the seller's account was registered. Although some overseas sellers do use US warehouses to ship their items (and some registered US-sellers may employ overseas drop-shippers), if a seller is registered overseas, that raises the likelihood of an item shipping from outside the US, particularly for multiple quantity commodity items. Checking seller feedback will often reveal if there are problems with long shipping times, canceled orders or other supply chain warning signs.