Item Location

[lisa_625-9]

Does it bother anyone else that a seller will list the item location in one part of the country and then find that it ships from an entirely different place?  Example: Item is listed as located in Columbus, OH.  You think 'Oh, that's not far, I'll pay a few dollars more and get this.'  Then I get a message in Chinese from the seller thanking me for the purchase, and see that it actually ships from San Jose, CA.  There is a level of deception here, that I wish ebay had a way of straightening out or monitoring.  You shouldn't be able to put just anything in as the location -- maybe people trust Midwesterners more or something, so they put in the location as OH, MI or TX.  It should be where the item is located.  This happens all the time.

[kibble-net]

I had a similar experience a few months ago.

Bought a Macbook charging cable that was listed as "ships from Buffalo NY". It ended up shipping from CANADA.

Reported the seller and nothing came of it.

Thankfully I wasn't charged any import fees.

[bonanza125]

Multiple threads have already address this. Until Ebay does a crackdown on this it is on the buyer to review profiles of the seller and check location of the seller. There really isn't much you can do other than report. 

[eburtonlab]

@lisa_625-9 

Often there are indications that the seller is drop-shipping that can be found on the seller's feedback page.

Probably the best way to deal with sellers that misrepresent item location is to avoid them. The "US only" item location filter selects items that are listed as being in the United States; however, as you have seen, not every seller that lists items in the US ships from the the indicated location as they should.

Before ordering you should check the estimated delivery dates -- that is 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 was registered. Although some overseas sellers do use US warehouses to ship their items (and some registered US-sellers may employ 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.

[mtgraves7984]

@lisa_625-9 

You've gotten good info so far. And to answer your question... Yes, it bothers manyone else, me included. Hang in there...

[robbie31415]

Yes, but ebay refuses to care about it, so i have to accept it.

[fullers_uk]

It gets worse than this, sellers from Chin show there inventory as in the US to trick buyers!

[roccotacodad54]

   That's exactly the reason I don't buy fairly easy to find items on eBay.  The only items I buy on eBay are vintage/antique items and or one of a kind type.

   I usually don't feel like playing detective by trying to discern a sellers actual location etc.

  I find the Money Back Guarantee a pain (you know where) to use and have rarely had to resort to it by buying domestically.

  It would be nice if Advanced Search were for including non domestic sellers instead of excluding them.

  I know fees from dropshippers etc. make shareholders happy but eBay and some other online venues would get more business from this buyer if they did away with them altogether.

  I'm not going to hold my breath though and just not buy common items online....................

[lisa_625-9]

I'm sorry, I did try to search and nothing came up.  Hard to believe no one had mentioned this before, but didn't see any related topics.

[lisa_625-9]

I always check the delivery dates -- anything more than about 10 days is suspect.  What I've found, though, is that they'll have a delivery window of 3-7 days (seriously, 3 days ... USPS?) and then I'll get a notice of delivery delay (surprise!) ... something like, waiting to receive package from int'l shipper like China Post.  As someone mentioned, if it's a common item and is really cheap, most likely it's from China, regardless of what the ad says.

[reallynicestamps]

Bought a Macbook charging cable that was listed as "ships from Buffalo NY". It ended up shipping from CANADA.

Many Canadian sellers who are close to the border (I can see the USA from the teahouse at Willows Beach for example)  will either ship from the USA or use a forwarder (usually chitchat or stallion) to carry their shipments to the USA and ship from there. 

Although I am surprised to see Buffalo, usually it would be Niagara Falls or Detroit from the Toronto GTA.