Because people learnt that they can buy the same crap from Dhgate / Alibaba, and all those iPhones were fake.
Yes, this is exactly why.
LOL
Finding someone on a forum that buys an item for $20, sells it to you for $35... then you (EB seller) make $4 or $5 and do all the work... meanwhile the 'supplier' buys stuff from those sites... makes the lions share of the profits and they even sit on orders sometimes... process the order in 1 day or 3 ... they aren't worried since they got your money and you NEED them more than they need you.
I"M not saying they are scammers. It is capitalism. But I am against the idea of the lions share going to the person who contributes the least amount of work and dedication.
I have done this in the past with 16 resellers.. I made a killing. But I would make an average of $6 per sale , my resellers made an average of $14.. some items $20 each. I felt it was fair.
I made over $1K a day at times... made a custom ordering database so they could track and place orders online.... had a full time customer service agent on skype to help them with questions and update orders. (in the end I lost the bussines becuase of paypal limations -- never trust those thieves and I gave too much credit to a few resellers that F**Ked me.)
I gave up trying to find them (suppliers) on any forum. They just want your money, almost all the profits and put in almost no effort to get organized. I am so glad they were lazy and greedy... now I buy my own stuff from china, keep all the profits and have complete control.
The other nice thing about CONTROLLING all the products is I only need 1 or 2 accounts to sell on... when you have suppliers shipping slow or they spend your money and block you on skype... well you need a bunch of accounts so when they screw you .. you have another account to work on. So now I don't need almost any resellers... just more VAs( virtual assistance) that work for $8 a day. Why give $10 to $15 commission for resellers per order when I can get 2 full work days from a VA for that and keep the rest of the profit?
If the old "resellers" weren't so damn lazy I would have been happy to continue allowing them to make profits off my work.
The only time I would look for resellers if I was FOOLISH enough to sell something that will get an account banned. Then resellers would take the risk and not one of my accounts. SO think about that if you are looking for suppliers. ;-)