USPS/Ebay delivery

[SamB]

A little tidbit of knowledge that may help someone from losing money buying on Ebay from offshore sellers. When a seller posts a tracking number for their countries shipping services,when the parcel gets to our country,it will be handed off to another carrier,usually USPS. It then gets another tracking number,different from the one given/posted to Ebay. The original tracking number will show Ebay that the parcel has been delivered,although it has NOT been delivered to you! If it then gets "Lost in the mail",you are out of luck trying to get a replacement or refund,BECAUSE Ebay says "The tracking number shows that the package has been delivered"! Best advice is buy from USA sellers. And better yet,avoid Ebay if at all possible,if you can.

 

[StarTech]

eBay is called RipBay for a reason.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I have been saying it for years
Buy from Alli-Baba or Alli-Express
In both of these platforms the sender does not get paid till you have recieved the goods .
I know it is a very bitter pill for Americans to swallow that one of those evil nasty child eating grandmother raping communist from China could actually provide a better on line platform than a flag waving capitalist American,,,,, but they did .

Down here we call it Evil Pay

 

[7394]

I refer to ebay as Fee-bay, or Flea-bay..

Selling there has become a fruitless endeavor, they jacked up the fees, want Bank Acc # & maybe my 1st born.. I quit selling there long ago.

 

[StarTech]

I gave on selling on eBay back in 2015 but at that time it was my local PO that was the problem. They are open only a couple hours each day during the week when someone shows up. It a little better now the postmaster is working three post offices during the day so it hard her to be here all day. And now my problem is I got run my business too so timing is difficult to do now as I am the only one here.

And Bert I have been wondering how the service was from Alli-Express though I try to stay away from after market stuff. Lots of bad luck with the after market stuff here.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Alli-Express is the retail division so by & large you are dealing with retail & wholesale merchants.
I have had no problems but I use the same filter as ebay and check what else that vendor is selling and only purchase from those that sell nothing but mower / engine / motorcycle etc stuff.
I buy most from Alli-Baba because that is B to B so you are dealing directly with the manufacturer / distributors so no rubbish merchants with stock rescued from the scrap bin
Because it is set up as B to B all items have minimum order quantities but just about all of them will allow a "sample order" of 1 to 5 at a slightly higher price .
For me the biggie is they have no tie in with the tax office so do not add the 10% gst that Evil Pay does and will ship by what ever means I request .
Being you are dealing with factories , many will list their customers as an example of the quality of their products so I come across factories that claim they are making the goods I buy from my wholesalers which gives me a second supply source and I do buy some products direct where the wholesale mark up is a bit excessive , Vanguard & Kohler air filters & plastic fuel filters & taps .And of course some list B & S , Kohler, Honda , Kawakasi , MTD etc as their customers
A 50 pack of filters which end up just over $ 1 is a lot better than $ 3.50 - $ 4.75.
If I had the space then I would have ordered 1000 which would have been less than 50¢ delivered , but that is near 10 years worth .
So now I will stock & fit only 4 filters , a long & cone shaped universal filter, a steel cased one for EFI engines and an aluminium one with a washable sintered brass filter of fire pumps .
I have been temped to buy some B & S cams but a min order of 100 is a bit too big to swallow considering I only fit 1 or 2 a season & funds are tight right now but if this season keep on the way it is going I might have a shot next year.

the big problem with both of them is their search engines suck.
So do the searches after hours with a coffee / wine / beer in hand and be preparred to spend a long time because while the site is in English , all of the vendors are Asian so translations of descriptions can be a bit funny
Cam shaft = open valve mechanism from one factory in Vietnam

Overall I could not be happier with the service which seems to have been set up to exclude dishonest trade where as Ebay & Amazon seem to have been set up for the benefit of dishonest trading.
No screen names or Avitars on Alli so genuine factory / business names ( some times in the native language ) and you will be listed under your company name.
But dealing with "lucky one you 2" on Ebay / Amazon does not make one very confident about the vendor to start with .\
Made in China is even better as it is almost 100% factory or factory distributors .
MiC prices tend to be lower but qualtities tend to be larger and their search filters are almost useless so search for Brigs & Stratton Carburettor with bring up thousands of listings many of which will be the same company - different product + every other carburettor.
Searching with B & S part numbers again bring up some B & S carbs + 10,000 non related items.
But the best things about all of them is they only ist the stock they have on hand or can make in a given time ( lead times seem to be accurate ) .
So no more ordering & paying for parts then waiting the better part of a year for it to arrive .

 

[SamB]

Alli-Express is the retail division so by & large you are dealing with retail & wholesale merchants.
I have had no problems but I use the same filter as ebay and check what else that vendor is selling and only purchase from those that sell nothing but mower / engine / motorcycle etc stuff.
I buy most from Alli-Baba because that is B to B so you are dealing directly with the manufacturer / distributors so no rubbish merchants with stock rescued from the scrap bin
Because it is set up as B to B all items have minimum order quantities but just about all of them will allow a "sample order" of 1 to 5 at a slightly higher price .
For me the biggie is they have no tie in with the tax office so do not add the 10% gst that Evil Pay does and will ship by what ever means I request .
Being you are dealing with factories , many will list their customers as an example of the quality of their products so I come across factories that claim they are making the goods I buy from my wholesalers which gives me a second supply source and I do buy some products direct where the wholesale mark up is a bit excessive , Vanguard & Kohler air filters & plastic fuel filters & taps .And of course some list B & S , Kohler, Honda , Kawakasi , MTD etc as their customers
A 50 pack of filters which end up just over $ 1 is a lot better than $ 3.50 - $ 4.75.
If I had the space then I would have ordered 1000 which would have been less than 50¢ delivered , but that is near 10 years worth .
So now I will stock & fit only 4 filters , a long & cone shaped universal filter, a steel cased one for EFI engines and an aluminium one with a washable sintered brass filter of fire pumps .
I have been temped to buy some B & S cams but a min order of 100 is a bit too big to swallow considering I only fit 1 or 2 a season & funds are tight right now but if this season keep on the way it is going I might have a shot next year.

the big problem with both of them is their search engines suck.
So do the searches after hours with a coffee / wine / beer in hand and be preparred to spend a long time because while the site is in English , all of the vendors are Asian so translations of descriptions can be a bit funny
Cam shaft = open valve mechanism from one factory in Vietnam

Overall I could not be happier with the service which seems to have been set up to exclude dishonest trade where as Ebay & Amazon seem to have been set up for the benefit of dishonest trading.
No screen names or Avitars on Alli so genuine factory / business names ( some times in the native language ) and you will be listed under your company name.
But dealing with "lucky one you 2" on Ebay / Amazon does not make one very confident about the vendor to start with .\
Made in China is even better as it is almost 100% factory or factory distributors .
MiC prices tend to be lower but qualtities tend to be larger and their search filters are almost useless so search for Brigs & Stratton Carburettor with bring up thousands of listings many of which will be the same company - different product + every other carburettor.
Searching with B & S part numbers again bring up some B & S carbs + 10,000 non related items.
But the best things about all of them is they only ist the stock they have on hand or can make in a given time ( lead times seem to be accurate ) .
So no more ordering & paying for parts then waiting the better part of a year for it to arrive .

One thing to always check on Amazon is that the item is being sold and stocked by Amazon,NOT a 3rd party seller. Amazon,for some reason,allows scammers to sell on their site.

 

[bertsmobile1]

One thing to always check on Amazon is that the item is being sold and stocked by Amazon,NOT a 3rd party seller. Amazon,for some reason,allows scammers to sell on their site.

I would propose that take out books around 1/3 of what is offered on Amazon is a con, defective goods or plain scammers with nothing to sell.
FWIW I was at a warehouse that was despatching goods sold via Amazon & Ebay often on behalf of the same importer but sold under different invoices for different prices.
Some also required us to print out product labels to stick on unbranded goods to change their name .

 

[StarTech]

Well I did have one bad experience with Amazon vendor. I had ordered what was a MTD OEM spindle for a Cub Cadet. When it arrived it in a unmarked package. It was defective as it had a lot end play even through it had tapered bearings. I return it as defective and got sock for both the return shipping plus a 30% restocking fee. I have ordered anything else like that; unless, I know the vendor is actually selling the product I am trying to buy. They got pissed for the bad review I wrote and demanded me to remove it; I didn't.

The spindle turned out to be the same Rotary spindles that got from my normal distributor which were also defective. At least I got them returned at no cost to ship back and a full refund on the five I had ordered. I went ahead and rebuilt the customer spindles with new taper bearings which solved the problem with the deck. That is when I found a local bearing supplier that have fair prices on bearings. I got about $161 order for them right now just waiting closer to Spring before ordering in case I need some other bearings.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I stopped selling on Ebay a long time ago. Just too much of a PITA. I have literally tossed stuff in the dumpster vs. Doing the Ebay or craigslist thing.