Ebay being clogged up by certain sellers

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 06/01/2020 12:54:03:

The best solution, if you can afford it, is to buy from suppliers who support our hobby rather than saving a few percent by going to random suppliers on eBay…

Neil

Yesterday I was looking to see if I could get some 440C stainless steel flat bar for a kitchen related project. All I could find in the UK was round bar. When I looked on EBay, there were a small number of sellers listing flat bar. All were Chinese. I guess they'll get the order when I get around to the job.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Posted by Mark Rand on 06/01/2020 14:42:21:

Yesterday I was looking to see if I could get some 440C stainless steel flat bar for a kitchen related project. All I could find in the UK was round bar. When I looked on EBay, there were a small number of sellers listing flat bar. All were Chinese. I guess they'll get the order when I get around to the job.

MetalSupermarket maybe??

Bill

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

A large percentage of my purchases on ebay are from private individuals, who do not necessarily list their items in the most logical way. Only scanning through huge numbers of listings more or less at random will stand any chance of seeing them.

A year or so back, one of the well known UK based suppliers was listing reamers individually in increments of 0.01mm. Their listings ran into thousands and swamped ebay. Fortunately that has stopped, maybe they now allow the purchaser to order the size they want.

I am attracted to things that are a bit out of the ordinary.

As for supporting UK based suppliers, I do and a lot of my Chinese and Indian tooling comes through these middlemen.

[Clive Brown 1Participant @clivebrown1]

Slight "fred drift", but has anyone experience of paying VAT and possibly duty on purchases from China that are above the price threshold of £15 or so? Is it payable to the Postie who makes the delivery?

Clive

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

The possibility of getting customs duty, VAT and the Post offices fee added to the cost always discourages me from spending too much on these imports. If they want to sting me one day, I will politely tell them to keep it.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Postie does not collect probably too likely to be mugged.

When I buy engine kits from the US they go to customd warehouse when they arrive here and then parcel force send a bill which you have to pay before it is released for delivery. Cost consists of any import duty, Fee for collecting and VAT on the lot

[John CParticipant @johnc47954]

Reply to Clive:

Yes Clive, I have paid these charges. Paying the VAT is understandable, paying the Post Office £8.00 'admin fee' less so! However, i weigh up the total cost and decide if the item is worth it – it may still be cheaper than buying locally. In the cases I have experienced the item is held at the post office that keeps your undelivered mail and the postie drops a card through your door. You proceed to the post office, hand over the cash (or card) and the item is yours.

John

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Jason B is correct ref the USA, as for the Chinese they are quite creative with item values so I haven't been charged import duty, collection fee, VAT & any other tax they can think up,as yet.

Tony

[WatfordParticipant @watford]

Posted by JasonB on 06/01/2020 21:12:52:

Postie does not collect probably too likely to be mugged.

In the good old days of purchase tax, and two or three deliveries a day, the postie (postman then) used to collect any tax.

Mike

[John Paton 1Participant @johnpaton1]

Posted by Tony Pratt 1 on 06/01/2020 21:17:38:

Jason B is correct ref the USA, as for the Chinese they are quite creative with item values so I haven't been charged import duty, collection fee, VAT & any other tax they can think up,as yet.

Tony

Yes it's a disgrace. It feels as bad a buying fake or stolen goods. I also hate buying an item apparently from a U.K. supplier whose advert is emblazoned with a Union Jack, only to find it is nothing of the kind.

£1.35 to send a letter from UK to Ireland, £1 to send 10kg package from China to U.K (presumably air freight given the speed of delivery)

who is the one laughing?

[SteviegtrParticipant @steviegtr]

Sometimes I wonder how they can do it. But they do.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Apparently the postage is heavily subsidised – see Financial Times article.

[Clive IndiaParticipant @cliveindia]

Posted by fizzy on 05/01/2020 21:17:37:

dont take any notice of the location filter – the chinese all say they are UK based. Take a look at delivery time, anything over a week is suspect. I get annoyed by the advertised amount bearing no relationship to the actual amount…its a minefield!

Good advice Mr. Fizzy. They are getting slowly more adept at this illusion. There seems also to be a half-way-house where they actually do have an address in the UK and seem to be able to get the stuff within a week. It is easy to think the goods are in the UK when buying, but it becomes apparent afterwards when you get something in Chinglish like "Very much it is we want to make you happy"
Sometimes the actual company can be found at the end of the advert.

It is particularly annoying when you want something quickly and find it is not going to be like that – OK if you can spot it and take delivery time into account. I mostly want my stuff to come Royal Mail First Class but that gives way to free by some other method and no first class option on the assumption price is everything.

[Author]

Posts