What’s the point of a nearest location search if the item is NOT in that location?

[krys888]

In the past two days, I spent time doing a nearest location search of an item because I need it quickly and I’ve bought enough to know the patterns. In BOTH cases, the item’s location stated it was close to me. In BOTH cases, tracking shows labels printed in a state 2000 miles away. In BOTH cases I messaged the seller asking why their item shows its located 2000 miles away from where it is being shipped from and in BOTH cases I got a response telling me to be patient that their warehouse is in X state (the one 2000 miles away) and that they don’t have the ability to cancel it even though it is only a label printed status and has not been picked up. Ebay needs to get rid of the nearest location search if its nonsense. I wasted money purchasing the same item twice to get it quick and in both cases there is NO way it will make it in time. And I dare not try a third.

[mudshark61369]

@krys888,

Item location misrepresentation has become more common lately especially among chinese sellers.  Are you checking feedback profiles and clicking on the numbers of negative and neutral feedback to see what those comments say?  That's one way to figure out if the seller does ship from the location given on a listing.  Even if a seller is a U.S. based drop shipper, they will sometimes say in a listing that items may come from different places, depending on their product source, but labels aren't created immediately.

If the item's tracking numbers now say waiting for item from shipping partner, chances are the items are coming from China.  If they take more than a couple of days after the last estimated delivery date to arrive, and have two shipping labels one over the other, chances are the item came from out of the country.  If you decide to leave appropriate feedback for that do not mention slow shipping, since ebay is removing those comments due to Covid slow downs.  State seller misrepresented item location. Those are not getting removed.

Other ways to determine if a seller is shipping from China/Asia are below.

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 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]

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 and deliver 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 as critical as filtering out sellers that ship from overseas. Just be sure to change your zip code back before you place an order to see the correct shipping calculations.

[usmediamass]

@krys888 

Now ebay has removed the feature to even sort by United States Only!

What a waste ebay has become.

I need something in the next 10 days and there is no way left to search for that.

Another stupid move from ebay.  

If it doesn't work don't fix it just remove it.

Soon all of ebay will be gone.

[eburtonlab]

@usmediamass 

I currently still see the Item location filter on the search results page on ebay.com:

If you do not, and restarting your browser or reloading the page does not show that, you can also find that option (or the option to search for items located in any individual country) by going to the Advanced Search page:

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@usmediamass 

@eburtonlab 

@krys888 

If you prefer you can use ebay dot ca for these wonderful choices. Personally I really don't understand the rationale of eBay constantly removing features for the sake of removing features. Not really an improvement in the scheme of things. On dot ca whenever I search closest it usually shows everything China first.

-Lotz

[eburtonlab]

@lotzofuniquegoodies 

I really don't understand the rationale of eBay constantly removing features for the sake of removing features.

While eBay has certainly removed or hidden its share of good features over the years, I do not think eBay has actually done so in this case, at least not intentionally.

As I indicated, I can still see the feature on ebay.com; while eBay may be rolling out changes, I suspect the issue is more likely a browser cache problem or an add-on conflict or even possibly a temporary side effect of a site change rather than an intentional permanent feature change by eBay.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@eburtonlab 

For me when I search I use closest first, then lowest shipping. Choosing Canada or North America is usually a lottery. We would love the option of removing sellers who use GSP but to date that is only wishful thinking.

-Lotz

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@eburtonlab 

I used to use the link below all the time as did many others.. Found it most helpful for checking final fees. When poof a few years ago. The link still shows up on invoice page in hub.  Will there be something similar with Managed Payments? 1,000,000.00 dollar question. The funny thing about missing features is you only notice then when you go to try to find them when you suddenly need them. And there is rarely an announcement.

https://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformation/news/FeeIllustrator.html

-Lotz

[eburtonlab]

@lotzofuniquegoodies 

I do not think ebay.ca has a Guaranteed Delivery option the way that ebay.com does, otherwise I would recommend trying that.

You might be able to use that feature on ebay.com while using a nearby US zip code to weed out overseas sellers, but then you may be left with US sellers that either may not ship to Canada, or who may do so but use GSP, which it sounds like you would prefer to avoid. And you would have to change your country and postal code or else go back to ebay.ca to make a purchase to see the correct shipping estimates. Clunky at best.

No easy solutions there. You may be better off searching Canada-only item location, and then trying to weed out sellers registered overseas; then you just have to look out for sellers registered in Canada who drop ship from overseas. If you set your search preferences to show seller info in the search results, you may be able to skip over any seller with a feedback percentage below 99% or so, which should avoid many of the worst drop shippers.

As far as Managed Payments and fees, I am not a seller so I have no experience with that. And I generally try to avoid predicting what eBay might do in the future. I have no sources of inside information, only my own observations from reading the discussion boards and buying on the site.