When is eBay going to clamp down on sellers who claim to be in Aus when they are not. You try Filter by local suppliers but you still get mostly overseas, because they are claiming the goods are in Aus when you know they are not.
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That would be impossible to police.
Impossible to police or that eBay simply don’t care. Heaps of people I know have reported sellers and they say nothing happens when they get reported. Every second listing claims to be in Australia and the only way to establish whether they actually are is to check feedback for location feedback. People pay more for a local supplier to ensure fast shipping or where a supplier has claimed to use Auspost only to have it coming from China. Surely it’s not hard to add a feedback section which asks to buyer to state where it was shipped from and to delist suppliers who abuse it.
What does it matter? It’s well known that eBay sellers lie about product location.
If I need something in a hurry I’m not going to eBay to find it, instead I’ll go to a shop or somewhere else online.
When I’m no hurry I’ll happily order from them for a cheaper price if it means waiting a few weeks.
For one thing, jobs. Secondly, not everything is available in stores. Buying from someone local is keeping a person employed and money in our economy, but it also means if I have a problem it’s easier to return. If i am buying off eBay, first thing I do is check for local and then go overseas. At the moment, I now have to do in depth checks of sellers despite their feedback levels because eBay isn’t doing anything to change it.
I have no issue with buying from China. I do regularly. I just want to know when I am doing, not when I buying something local I expect to be here in a week and having it take 4.
MM is right, it does matter. But eBay has bigger problems than this. There’s scams aloof there that end up costing honest people big money.
I can’t find the link now but a few days ago I read a blog entry from a guy who sold his iPhone 6S on eBay. The buyer kicked up a stink and demanded a refund and sent the phone back. The buyer opened the returned package to find an ancient GSM Samsung phone in its place. In the end PayPal ruled in favour of the buyer and requested the purchase be refunded.
I can’t find the link but obviously the seller was going to do a little more followup. I’d love to know what happened in the end with that one.
Yeh, I read that too. Crazy.
Here’s the link: http://matthewsag.com/?p=1642
I refuse to pay for anything via PayPal that isn’t on my Credit Card so that I always have that as a recourse if things go pear shaped - to the point where I even pay the fees the seller is charged if needed. 
That’s the one. As much as I hate PayPal (those pricks sent debt collectors after me over $45 which I had already paid them) I use them for the same reason.
I keep an eye on who’s bidding on my auctions too. For that reason.
I haven’t purchased anything “major” of eBay for a few years now… (ie a couple iPhone 5’s about 2 years ago) But I’d be pretty dubious about buying or selling iPhones there now, from all the stories you hear… (Of course… Exactly how many are sold without issue… Maybe it’s like all bad things - you hear bad stories, but not the good ones…)
As for the overseas seller issue… I thought that seller’s real locations as listed on their profiles, and as such the item dispatch location, were “accurate”? I know when you do a search, you can end up with “Sells to…” auctions instead of only “Located in”…
I’ve sold a bit of stuff lately like hard drives, a Drobo, 2 cameras and not had any problems at all. Though there is this thing I’ve noticed recently where I get messages from people asking if they can have 5-10 days to pay. The first time I didn’t think much of it but after getting the same person asking on several different auctions, I became suspicious. There’s apparently scams where people buy stuff off eBay and sell it on Gumtree and vice versa.
But reading things like this thread do make you think you should be cautious.
If I sell, I only do COD.
I bought a Foredom-type tool on eBay as I don’t need to use it often it enough to pay for the real thing, much as I’d prefer one. The seller claimed to be in a Sydney suburb so it seemed OK for what it claimed to be.
It didn’t have an Oz plug and the instructions that came with it warned about it’s overheating after 10 minutes of continuous use. After contacting the seller (NOT in Oz) who offered to send me an adaptor plug, which I rejected, I opened a dispute with eBay and after a couple of weeks I received a refund, including postage.