How can I turn off international sellers?

[kitika77]

When scanning items for sale, how can I eliminate all international sellers? I don't want to buy from China any longer, I have been burned too many times. I only want to buy within the US, is it possible to toggle off all international sellers so that I can just shop domestically?

[maryinlikely]

Use your Edit at the bottom of your item for sale list. Go to Postage International and select No International sales.  Then check your site preferences and make sure International is turned off. 

[mudshark61369]

@kitika77,

Trying to avoid chinese sellers is hard because ebay helped many to register in this country, and some sellers drop ship from China.  First on each search page in the left hand column set item location to U.S. only.  Not using Best Match or Price: lowest first also helps knock some off of the first pages.   The best way to avoid them is by checking feedback profiles and reading listings carefully.  The list below may help you to avoid them.

Indications on listing pages;

1. Item location not giving a city or state Ex; Ca. /USA, Many places USA, USA/USA.
2. Extended delivery or handling time frames. Especially, from supposed U.S. based sellers.
3. Very low prices w/ Free shipping
4. Using a brand name in the title but listing it as unbranded or not giving  a brand name in the item specifics
5. American flag symbols and many statements of being a U.S. Seller
6. The same photos and listing templates used by many other sellers
7. Measurements that are both metric and inches.
8. Use of Asian models in photos
9. Verbiage in descriptions that do not sound like they were written by a person whose first language is English

On feedback profile pages;

1. Country of registration ... sometimes.
2. Very high volume seller registered between 2010 and now.
3. Feedback percentages below 98.9%
4. Neutral and negative feedback sometimes in the hundreds  (you can click on those numbers to read only those comments)  look for slow shipping, non delivery,  partial orders received, and items shipped from China comments, as well as poor quality ones.
5. Replies to non positive feedback that indicate English is not the persons first language
6. Repetitive replies to non-positive feedback

[eburtonlab]

When searching, there is no option to sort by seller location, only item location.

The "US only" item location filter selects items that are listed as being in the United States; however, as you have likely seen, not every seller that lists items in the US ships from the US as they should. Before ordering you should check the estimated delivery dates -- that is usually 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 is currently registered; if you go to the seller's current listings ("items for sale") and scroll down on the left side of the page, under "Seller information" you can check where the account was originally registered, I believe. Although some overseas sellers do use US warehouses to ship their items (and some US-registered 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.

In the US at least, when faced with a long list of search results that you want to narrow down to sellers that can ship quickly, using the "Guaranteed Delivery" filter will often help; very few sellers that ship from overseas qualify. That is a rough filter, though -- many domestic sellers may be filtered out as well. If no sellers can deliver to your area in four days, try changing your zip code and searching again -- the trick is to find sellers that can reliably deliver somewhere in the US in four days; the actual delivery time to your location is not material as long as it filters out overseas sellers. Just be sure to change your zip code back before you place an order to see the correct shipping calculations.

[monster-deals]

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Stop brushing your teeth.

[2015mhfashions]

I think you'll find they mean buying from international sellers, not selling international.

[mammals_r_us]

I want to change the defaults so that I only see items from sellers in my country. I don't want to buy from overseas because: delivery time is slow; I have to pay import duties; the item might get stuck in customs; the quality sometimes cannot be trusted; the item might have different specifications e.g. a different power plug. All sorts of reasons.

Is there any way to permanently disable international sellers so I only see items from my own country when buying? I know it can be manually done on every search by going to filters but that takes time and effort. It should be disabled by default - a configurable option in Settings, but I can't find it.

I'm talking about the eBay website, not the app.

[mudshark61369]

@mammals_r_us,

This is a 4 year old topic, but the replies from back then gave information about your question. (This topic will soon be locked. The short answer is you cannot permanently block foreign sellers, it has to be done using the filter in the left column on the first results page.  Many of the chinese sellers registered in the U.S. so their listings will show up.  I posted a list of things to look for to help identify China based sellers who claim to be U.S. based ones.  The quickest way to avoid them is, not to use Price: lowest + shipping as the main search filter.

[mammals_r_us]

Although this is an old topic, the issue still stands, so I don't think it should be locked. Other eBayers should be allowed to vote for it so that the message eventually reaches the eBay team. I propose that the solution is to allow eBay default settings to be configurable. Let users set their default as their own country only (UK only in my case). I expect that is what most people want, so even better would be to make that the default for everyone, then they can change it to International if they wish.

[mudshark61369]

@mammals_r_us,

"Other eBayers should be allowed to vote for it so that the message eventually reaches the eBay team."

Ever since 2010 in this country U.S.A.  when China based sellers were first allowed to sell on this site, people have been asking why they or other international or individual sellers cannot be blocked.  I posted more complete answer about that,  in a topic from yesterday (Link below).   Since I joined these boards about 21 years ago, there have been hundreds of topics asking for a way to block foreign sellers.

    None of them are ever seen by people high enough up in ebay management who could make a change. The reps who do post on the community may pass suggestions up the chain, but upper management rarely listens to the members. The direct suggestion box was locked and the key hidden back in `08.

Basically it boils down to this.  Sellers who are ebay's only "customers" pay a fee to have their items posted on ebay's sites. If ebay were to offer a permanent block of international sellers, then many sellers would leave the site, since ebay guarantees their items will be viewable in countries they will ship to.

 Since you are located in the U.K. how many times have you seen "Registered as a business seller in the U.K." on a seller's profile?  Many of those sellers are based in China but registered in the U.K. so even with a permanent U.K. Only filter their items would show up. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Blocking-a-Seller/m-p/34519142#M490644

[mammals_r_us]

I see, thanks for explaining.

From UK, I see sellers from China, US, Germany and occasionally another country. If that seller has made the effort of setting up a division in UK, has already imported their products to UK (and paid import duties) and will be shipping their products from within UK (allows fast delivery), then that's fine. If a seller has not made that effort, then there is a much higher risk of the transaction not meeting the sellers expectations.

[mudshark61369]

@mammals_r_us,

"If that seller has made the effort of setting up a division in UK, has already imported their products to UK (and paid import duties) and will be shipping their products from within UK (allows fast delivery), then that's fine".

You are probably right about sellers from European countries who are Registered in the U.K. as business sellers having their products available for shiping from a U.K. location.  The China based ones on the other hand may have warehousing in the U.K. but list items not available in them, for sale.  We've had other members from the U.K. post about that happening to them on the U.S. based site's community, this one, and all we can tell them is to file an Item Not Received (INR) dispute if the item doesn't arrive by the last estimated delivery date.

   The seller's country of origin is not given on their profile if they register in the U.S. or U.K. as a business seller.   So the best way to weed them out is to check their feedback profile pages, click on the numbers of neutral and negative feedback they have received, to read only those comments.  Look for delayed shipping, late arrival,  items being shipped from china, and quality issues.

[kh-stanley1]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.