Hi guys,
I recently tried listing product son Ebay to dropship to customers around the world, with a limited degree of success. My advice is if your trying to run a business, don't put your reputation in the hands of someone thats about 5000 miles away as, like I found, they really can mess up your reputation.
First item I listed was a 5 th Generation MP4 player which looks like the older and slim Ipods. I was excited for my new idea and thought could make some people happy and make a bit of money doing this without actually buying any products or taking them to the post office which does my head in everytime I go down and its pension day. 20 grannies trying to get their pension as you call down with a package or two on your lunch break from work and you have no time to fart around makes for very annoying situation :).
Anyway enough about grannies, I placed the Ipod replica MP4 players on Ebay and several sold within a day or two. I ordered them from the supplier, and put the details of both customers, who were located in the UK, and thought wow, that was easy. Jobs a good'un right? WRONG :) When the people recieved their items about 12 days later, everything about the item was perfect, the colour they requested which I forwarded onto hte supplier was correct, the package of accessories and size of memory (8GB) was right....couldn;t be better until the description I re-read said it had a camera onboard, which it didn't.
After contacting the supplier he said it was an error on his part and I said okay we're only human people do make mistake, so I offered the customer the profit margine I would be making (£7 on this particular item) as a refund to which they both accepted and lived happily ever after...as far as I know.
Next came the real stinger which I have opened a dispute with on aliexpress which has lasted the arrival of these items about 28 days so far with bugger all happening except broken promises and some evidence that supports my claim that I am being screwed. This was a costly effort as I had to refund tonight £165 through Paypal for 3 tablet PC's I tried to dropship from a totally different supplier from the MP4 player one.
Their supplier feedback was about 800 + and was 100% and since ordering these tablets it has dropped to 93% which made me think what the hell went wrong? So anyway two customer from russia ordered 3 tablet PC's I put on Ebay and again I ordered them thinking ding dang doo thats an easy sale and thats £12 profit for me for each PC sold.
Well what a nightmare it has turned out to be. One customer bought 2 tablets and the other bought one. The person with the 2 tablet PC's ordered theirs on the 4th November and I was told it left China on the 9th of November which is not what the tracking says as it says when translated from Russian using google translate, the status is "No Discharge - No Mark". This in my opinion means it hasn't been sent from China because there is no Customs sticker for that country or there was bugger all in the package to begin with and the guy was generating a number for an empty packet. So a dispute has been opened with that transaction. The tracking information on the Russian websit eis shown below:
Same supplier again but different Russian customer and the Russian Post Office helped me with this one catch the bugger out. They ordered their tablet pc on the 2nd of November on Ebay, they then shipped out apparantly on the 5th of November. Looks all and good, item showed up on the Russian Postage website as being sent out, however it was scanned in at the post office nearest the customers destination but somehow the weight has changed since it was re-weighed at the Russians end from 0.534 KG to a big fat ZERO 0.00. The Russian post office told me it seems very suspicous and could be an empty parcel with the tracking number. Again a claim has been opened for this order too and I have showed how the tracking information has changed as it enters the Russian end:
The Chinese suppliers excuse is that the customs policies have changed in China and long delays are expected. Since these orders for customers I have ordered my own electronics for myself a package of 4 Battery packs for Xbox 360, 50 Iphone 5 Covers, Another tablet PC from another Supplier and an in car camera, all arriving within 17 days. Don't let Chinese suppliers put you off everywhere has good and bad suppliers even Ebay or Amazon but the motto here is don't let the sods get away with it.
If Aliexpress does not refund my money or favours in the suppliers case, I will contact VISA which I used to pay for the items and explain it to their fraud department. Its amazing how quickly they can reverse payments in this day in age :D.
Thanks guys will do a review on my tablet PC soon as been very busy with work and Xmas.
Lata dudes.
Henry
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