I buy mostly used books on eBay and have found that most of the time when OSM Worldwide is involved, it is with sellers that sell high volume and cheap (often Goodwill stuff or donations or dumpster diving—wherever they get the items). They use stock photos and generalized descriptions such as “items may include highlighting in text, inscriptions,” former owners name,” etc.
The experience is exactly as you all described it: OSM gets the package, sits on it for an inordinately long time, and once it finally does get taken to the USPS, then it gets delivered. It is exceedingly frustrating and most sellers do not state they use OSM.
So if you find an item from a seller that is selling enormous amounts of stuff, non-specific descriptions, free shipping, stock photos—things like that—write and ask them first. Watching your package sit in an OSM warehouse for weeks (USPS typically states it is waiting on it too) is extremely frustrating. Once USPS gets a hold of it, it’s usually quick because they are reliable for the most part. If free shipping is that important to you, it might be worth the wait. Beat up packaging seems to be common as well with OSM shipped items.
An example of a place that uses OSM is SecondSale which sells used books. I sadly have a book order stuck in the OSM twilight zone with no idea how many weeks I will have to wait while it continues to sit unmoved with a tracking number that says USPS is waiting for it to be delivered to them.
