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eBay trend...

Chuck(G)

Chuck(G)

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Joined
Jan 11, 2007
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Location
Pacific Northwest, USA
I was a bit surprised to find that some low-end SSDs that I ordered came from Newegg (shipped by them). Friday, I ordered a gallon of Zep odor eliminator (we have dogs in the house) and received a text message yesterday (Saturday) afternoon that it had been delivered to my house--and it had. In this case, the vendor turned out to be Walmart. Nothing in either listing indicated the source.
Is this something new--regular B&M retail stores hiding behind eBay user IDs?
I'm not sure if I like this or not.
 
Wally's mart has the Zep less than a buck cheaper than the eBay price, but it's clear on the other side of town, so a decent enough deal--and we're in the boonies. Can't figure how the eBay seller made money on that one.
 
I've had a couple of eBeh sellers ship an item from Amazon before. For someone that uses eBeh a lot and doesn't want the hassle of signing up for some other platform just for one or two things, it's not the worst thing in the world. But it does seem strange that they don't say what they are doing. I'd speculate profits on something like that might be a matter of averages over many items.
 
SomeGuy said:
I've had a couple of eBeh sellers ship an item from Amazon before. For someone that uses eBeh a lot and doesn't want the hassle of signing up for some other platform just for one or two things, it's not the worst thing in the world. But it does seem strange that they don't say what they are doing. I'd speculate profits on something like that might be a matter of averages over many items.
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They don't say what they are doing because that is Amazon's policy regarding drop shipping - this is what Amazon has to say about it:
 
Chuck(G) said:
I was a bit surprised to find that some low-end SSDs that I ordered came from Newegg (shipped by them). Friday, I ordered a gallon of Zep odor eliminator (we have dogs in the house) and received a text message yesterday (Saturday) afternoon that it had been delivered to my house--and it had. In this case, the vendor turned out to be Walmart. Nothing in either listing indicated the source.
Is this something new--regular B&M retail stores hiding behind eBay user IDs?
I'm not sure if I like this or not.
Click to expand...
I have had this happen from both Walmart.com and Amazon. And whenever it does I feel kind of stupid for not having found it cheaper on either.
 
The drop shippers can work, until they don't work, and the package simply never arrives. Then you have to deal with that...
 
I've bought items for years from Newegg on ePlop. I knew it was them. Occasionally it seems you can find items on ePlop that you can' t find on newegg.com. Now it's quite another thing to actually want those terrible to find items on ePlop.
 
Just ran into another one of those "drop shipper" issues. I thought I'd get an above-the-screen lamp for my monitor. I noticed two sellers that were selling a 44 cm unit. I did a BIN on the first, and promptly got a request to cancel the order because the lamp was out of stock. Okay, so I purchased one from the other seller. Within hours, the same--"our supplier can't find them". In other words, they were trying to sell something that they didn't physically have.
 
kantexplain said:
I just hope it isn't a fake.
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I've been spending considerably more time buying through Aliexpress Vs ebay these days regardless of how authentic the product is, rather because I'm starting to see a lot of ebay products that ARE just aliexpress products with a 10% or higher markup.
 
NeXT said:
I've been spending considerably more time buying through Aliexpress Vs ebay these days regardless of how authentic the product is, rather because I'm starting to see a lot of ebay products that ARE just aliexpress products with a 10% or higher markup.
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I have been buying from aliexpress for years as well.

What is this "I hope its not fake" nonsense.. Is that because adrians digital basement says there are fake chips floating around? There are, they are littered all over ebay too. That doesnt make everything aliexpress sells fake. I buy tons of connectors and bits through them as they are the cheapest.

Come on man, think for yourself.

Do we need to add a CRT safety disclaimer to this post?!?!
 
Aliexpress still has a few items as well that are blatent knockoffs of other products but a fraction of the cost. Stuff that ebay has long since banned under pressure from OEM's like Amphenol, Molex, BERG and 3M. Is the build quality not as great? Sure but if a connector costs me $8 instead of $35 sure, put four of 'em in the shopping cart.
 
I was going to make a post this morning asking if any stateside members have a couple connectors I need. But I just bought them on aliexpress for a couple dollars. I can wait 40 days.
\
edit: On a side not. There are some odd things that happen. I bought this dirt cheap "Digital TV tuner" years ago (2017 or 2018) that Can take composite and export to vga. A nice thing to have for only a few dollars. I wanted more so I bought one last year or earlier this year. The unit looks the same but no longer functions in the same way. It just Doesnt see the signal and displays nothing. I bought another, and same results. So clearly the innards are different now than they were in 2017. So there is no rhyme or reason with these cheap chinese devices. You cant even consistently count on them IF they work, that they will be manufactured the same way. I wonder it it supported NTSC earlier on and its only PAL now.

Anyway, the price has doubled since then but this is the item I mean. https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251...t_main.10.afc81802MfnYlk&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa
 
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Even Harbor Fright plays these games. I have a big buffer with a motor that will pull your arm off. A friend saw my unit a few months later and bought what he thought was the same unit. At least it looked the same physically and the stock number was the same--even the arbors were the same size. But inside of the motor housing was a much smaller motor--the housing was mostly empty space. You could stop the thing just by pressing on the workpiece.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Even Harbor Fright plays these games. I have a big buffer with a motor that will pull your arm off. A friend saw my unit a few months later and bought what he thought was the same unit. At least it looked the same physically and the stock number was the same--even the arbors were the same size. But inside of the motor housing was a much smaller motor--the housing was mostly empty space. You could stop the thing just by pressing on the workpiece.
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You are 100% right. They used to sell a pretty good electric chainsaw for around $40 to $50. I actually did alot of limbing so I took out the 2 year warranty for $20.00. Well it didnt break but some connector or switch was wonky so I took it in for the warranty. Big mistake, the replacement or what they considered lateral saw replacement was so under-powered and cheaply made it failed in a day (electric motor smoked and seized). Not to mention holding the trigger and the now implemented thumb safety switch cramped up your hand almost immediately. Youd need pianist fingers to operate this thing safely. I actually got them to give me back my original price and $20.00 warranty as they could not really honor it. Its a real shame as that initial saw still worked and I should have kept it. I think it had a 9 amp motor!

Thier hand orbital sander was the same story.
 
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Both of mine are red and black. Both look identical until you look very closely. The second was given to me by a friend. Not sure who bought it first.
 
My experience with AliExpress was not good. I bought two OEM 450W Lenovo ThinkCentre PSUs (54Y8876). I received one and the other one was a generic knock-off. It took forever to get my $ back and I had to return the generic PSU. Bizarre experience. IMPO AliExpress is not worth the risk. eBay has much better buyer protection. The flip side is that selling on eBay can be a nightmare.

My wife has a serious Amazon addiction. I exceedingly rarely buy an Amazon. I find their search impossible to work with. Plus their prices for the stuff I am interested in is usually extremely expensive comparatively.

I really like eBay for the narrow/complex search ability and do 95% of my online shopping there.
 
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