mcgon1979 wrote:Whats happening here lads is whats called "drop shipping"... The sellers in UK don't actaully have the item in stock (even though they say they have). When you buy their item, they order it from asia and when it arrives, they repack and send to you. Thats why it takes weeks to get an item that is purportedly "in stock" in the UK...
Dropshipping is actually a bit worse than you describe. Dropshippers are middle-men who never handle the goods. You order from them and pay. When payment is processed, they purchase the item from the Dropshipping website at greatly reduced price giving your delivery address. Dropshipping company then post directly to you giving no indication of their identity. As you say, this can take weeks as item may not be in stock anymore etc. Also, if item is shipped from outside EU, you might get hit for VAT and/or customs duty. Scrutinise ads carefully as, under eBay rules, this latter point must be mentioned.
mcgon1979 wrote:NEgative feedback them all the way or others won't know. I was gonn abuy my phone in Germany, but bought in UK as I thought I'd have it quicker. big mistake. the seller had feedbqack of 95% with 1000 sales. I thought that was "ok" not great. Then I opened up the feedback and saw 10s of grey/neutral feedbacks. My fault. Always check the feedback in detail.
Agreed. Study feedback carefully. Personally, I won't have a second look if less than 99%. Even then, check how much negative was in the last month and find it (might involve scrolling through dozens of pages, but well worth it). Also examine how positive feedback was achieved. If you're buying a high priced item like a phone, 99% positive feedback isn't worth a curse if it's been achieved by selling lots of low priced items.
Probably stating the obvious here
Hope you get sorted out with your phone.