@xox0xox,
Being a member as long as you have, you should know that feedback profiles should be looked at for several reasons, not just to find out where a seller is from. Unfortunately, these days too many things we buy in stores are made in China or have parts that are made there. You should know that in 2012 ebay opened the flood gates to chinese sellers and helped many of them register in this country, and was helping them to find warehouse space, which most of them didn't use after a few years.
Because it can be hard to tell where a seller is located or ships from I created a list of things I look for to avoid buying from China based sellers.
There are ways to figure out if a seller is actually China based or drop ships from there. Below is a list of things I check.
On Listing pages:
- Items priced well below brand name items price.
- Items listed by many other sellers using the same photos and prices often.
- 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 Top Rated seller with a feedback percentage below 98.6%
- 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.
- 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.
- Very high volume sellers who joined after 2010.
- All or most feedback is for Private listings.
- Those that do not list all items as private, have FB for items in many unrelated categories.
- Feedback numbers that don't add up. Shooting star feedback numbers but a low number in the last year or 12 months.
- Neutral and Negative feedback saying items came from China. That took a long time to arrive. Missing items from multiple quantity orders. Poor Quality, Cancelled purchases. Poor communications. (click on the numbers of neutral and negative feedback received, to read only those comments).
- Responses to non positive 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 in the long run can save time and possibly money. It becomes second nature after awhile.
"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FOOLPROOF, BECAUSE FOOLS ARE SO DARNED INGENIOUS!" (unknown)
