Purchases from China without knowing it.

Several times I have made a purchase from China unknowingly ! Every time there is a delivery issue with tracking and delivery ! We should be told upfront this is a foreign seller. Each time I have contacted the seller I get some snippy response like have patience it will get there . REALLY!

us.sattl

75 View listings

Posted 2 years ago·Last reply 2 years ago

4 comments

az93

·2 years ago

13013 View listings

Returning an item to China is hard. Ebay will not provide a label. I had to ask the seller to provide a label. It was a giant hassle. I agree that buyer should be informed prior to purchase that this is a seller from China. I also think buyers should have a block list for sellers just like sellers have a block list for buyers.

mudshark61369

·2 years ago

"There is no such thing as foolproof, because fools are so darned ingenious" (unknown)3113 View listings

@us.sattl,

While opening a seller's feedback profile page may tell you where a seller registered from, that may not be true, because many foreign sellers registered in the U.S., especially China based ones. That means you have to learn to recognize them using the info available to you.

There are ways to figure out if a seller is actually China based or drop ships from there. Below are lists of things I Iook for to avoid them.

On Listing pages:

Items priced well below brand named items price.
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.
Item descriptions that have wording in them that doesn't seem like it was written by a person whose first language is English.
A High volume seller with a feedback percentage below 98.9%
Item titles giving a brand name, and photos showing a brand name label, but in the Item Specifics it says Brand: Unknown.
Items that don't have a recognizable Brand Name.
Items for sale by many other sellers using the same photos and page layout.
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.
All or most feedback is for Private listings.
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. (click on the numbers of neutral and negative feedback received, to read only those comments). Add about half the number of neutrals to the negatives to get a true idea of their feedback percentage.
Responses to non positive feedback written by someone whose first language does not appear to be English, often starting with "Dear" and left repetitively.
A very high number of feedback, but only a few hundred in the last 12 months.

It may take a little time to learn to use the above lists, but in the long run can save time and possibly money.

kensgiftshop

·2 years ago

389 View listings

Always check the sellers feedback, it'll show where they are located.

gosimus

·2 years ago

1124 View listings

@us.sattl

< Several times I have made a purchase from China unknowingly >

Check the Estimated Delivery date on the listing. If that date is a number of weeks out, then you know the merchandise isn't coming from Iowa. Also, look at the seller's feedback page ... if it says he's in China, that's another clue.