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Important question for UK as well as US sellers
 

Last night I looked a little bit on the UK ebay and I noticed a lot of Chinese sellers that try to make it appear that they are UK sellers.
They ship packages from China with Royal mail, and the delivery time is fast, about 3-4 days.

The question Im having is how you UK sellers deal with this?
How many days is the delivery time in the UK, if sent from UK? About 1 day right? How much is the postage fee?

Of curse I understand that real UK sellers have some advantages, but with that short of a delivery time from abroad, and if the price is lower...

Im curios to know how you deal with this.

The same question can also apply on US sellers.

UK postage 1st class 2-3 days but almost always there next day , prices depend on size and weight , didn't know they were shipping Royal Mail from China , but I have noticed more and more sellers from Hong Kong that are hard to compete with :fight:

A lot of the big chinese sellers i know have told me they have people working for them in the UK. These employees then ship the order from within the UK to customers so it is usually quite fast. 1st class post arrives the next day in most cases. The price is £0.90 for a "Large Letter" which weights 100g or less, but you can check exact prices on ryaol mail website

If you are sourcing your products from China depending on which product, if it is the cheaper range chances are they will compete. I've seen several Chinese sellers appear that they are from the UK, they are in fact from China operating on eBay UK.

Its generally the cheaper stuff like Apple phone cases and cheap Android phones, I wouldn't have thought Royal Mail actually deliver from China to the UK. I thought Chinese sellers use EMS because it is a lot cheaper than DHL and so on.

The normal delivery time of a 1st class letter would be 1-2 working days.

There are more Chinese vendors in USA Ebay, but I still notice that for the most part people will still buy from American buyers, I have about 3 items that are heavily competed with Chinese vendors and I still out-sell them easily so it's not a real problem.

Eventually people see that waiting 14-20 days isn't a real bargain.

Seen a few chinese sellers selling the same item as me and can offer it for less inc shipping than what i do just for the item.

They do say in their description that it may take 15days.

They will also be able to provide the item alot cheaper than what i buy it for and will be willing to accept a smaller profit than i do, this is in the case above about them have UK sellers, sounds like reverse dropshipping.

I was absolutely fuming a few weeks ago when I ordered some inkjet printer cartridges that I needed urgently. I ordered specifically from a seller who claimed to be in the UK and had the words '24 HOUR DELIVERY' emblazoned all over his auctions. Now I really did need the inkjet cartridges urgently as I needed to print out my own parcel labels etc and my printer had run out of ink quicker than I thought it would. So I was not impressed when I was still waiting over a week later.... I contacted the seller and he told me the cartridges were coming from CHINA! Even though on his auction description it said UK STOCK! Anyway I ordered from a real UK seller and demanded a refund from this Chinese fool.

In my feild alot of buyer just want things from the U.K, They don't know that most u.k sellers are selling the same S**T, others don't want the hassle if things go wrong with customs or the item does not work, they would rather speak to someone from the u.k and have u.k support. others think that higher price means better quality, theres loads of reasons and if your good at your job (selling) then you should not be really effected.

One thing i realised years ago is that most of the chinese are just sellers, middle man or dole dosser making a quick buck and know nothing about the products they sell, every listing is the same as the next from chinese sellers so Know your products in side out, the better you can do that the better off you and your customers will be., make your listings stand out, good clear pictures and detailed knowlage of the products that can be seen in listings helps.