I Want To Buy From A Uk Seller On Ebay

[shivvy]

I want to buy something on ebay, and I want to buy from a UK seller so that I get the item in good time.
I have ticked the option for UK sellers only, however it seems that sellers from China must be able to use a UK address so that it falls into that listing, but the estimated delivery date is 3 weeks away so it must be coming from further afield.
Is there anything I can do to avoid this? It is really frustrating when I research and see what I want but time after time I see a long delivery time and when I scroll to the bottom of the page I see a Chinese address.
Any tips?

[barry1010]

It is annoying and I haven't been able to find a way around it. Have you looked on Amazon to see if it's available there? Or other retailers.

[Maydup]

Just continue to do what you're doing and check the address and delivery dates. Some things are in short supply here at the moment and the only sellers are outside the UK. Keep searching and stay safe online.

[Buenchico]

A lot of eBay sellers are 'drop shippers', who never see a single product that they (claim) to sell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_shipping
So, while they might appear to be in Birmingham, the products you order from them could be coming from Beijing, Barcelona, Brno, Budapest or anywhere else they happened to have got drop shipping arrangements with. All you can do to avoid dealing with them (if that's what you want) is to look for all the clues on eBay, such as Chinese (or other foreign) names and/or addresses and to seek out sellers who specify the couriers that they use (such as 'Royal Mail 48' or other UK-based services, like CollectPlus).

Be warned though: UK couriers currently have some very long delivery times anyway, so you might find that, irrespective of where you order from, you'll have a long wait for your eBay item to arrive.

I ordered from a reputable UK-based eBay seller (with many thousands of sales and a 99.1% approval rating) on 14 April, with the item being despatched by 'Royal Mail 48' (which is the commercial equivalent of '2nd Class Mail') on 15 April. The package (which had clearly been posted as stated) took 14 days to get here, arriving on 29 April. I've seen other posts online that sugggest that, at the current time, it's not at all unusual for items sent by Royal Mail to take several weeks to arrive.

[shivvy]

Yup - I have had to swap to Amazon.
Thanks for the replies.

[quizman55]

Change the "UK sellers only" to "within x miles of your location" 500 miles should be enough, this will rule out anything that is coming from China. Still look into where the seller is based though, by clicking on the number next their name and feedback rating, this will tell you where they are registered, if it says somewhere in the Far East, move on to another seller.

[drmorgans]

Always worth checking feedback to see if buyers are saying long delivery times are due to the seller being abroad, particularly if their feedback is low - less that 99.5%.