Advice wanted - Ebay

Not sure if this has already been covered, I've tried looking to see if it has but can't find anything on the subject...

I have noticed a niche product on eBay that ranges between £30-50 and each seller is shifting around 20-30 units per day, even at the higher end of the scale (£50)

My question is, could I create a similar listing at £30, then when I sell a unit at £50, buy one from the £30 seller and send it to the buyers address? Is this allowed on eBay?

Maybe a naive question for the eBay veterans on here, but I'm a noob so any advice would be great

Never really done similar, but I guess if the seller can provide tracking info then maybe. Even so, the seller might recognise what your doing after a while since you will be asking for a different address for every sale. It would be easier to ship from amazon instead.

Yeah I thought as much, my way of thinking is if he is a getting a sale out of it as well as me, and I'm making an extra 20 sheets out of it, everyone's a winner

Francoss88 said:

"I have noticed a niche product on eBay that ranges between £30-50 and each seller is shifting around 20-30 units per day, even at the higher end of the scale (£50). My question is, could I create a similar listing at £30, then when I sell a unit at £50, buy one from the £30 seller and send it to the buyers address? Is this allowed on eBay?"

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Not a good idea to do it in the same market, as people have tried to do it on my niche product and I sometimes screw with them on purpose. Most of the times I don't care if you're doing it small scale, but the one thing I will screw you 100% of the time is if you list it using my pictures.

Francoss88 said:

my way of thinking is if he is a getting a sale out of it as well as me, and I'm making an extra 20 sheets out of it, everyone's a winner

Click to expand...

From the seller's point of view though, if there is demand for product at 50, I should be able to sell it to the end user at 50, not selling it at 30 and you keeping 20. You are taking money out of my pockets.

My brother did this a few times when he was out of stock on an item.
The problem is the tracking number. Ebay apparently monitors and will not allow duplicate tracking numbers to be uploaded. He would message the buyer with the tracking information and it worked out OK. But you will not have proof of delivery if the customer decided to claim item not received.

You can do this. But I'll list some of the risk:

1) Tracking Number. eBay does not allow any 1 tracking number to be used twice on their system. However, PayPal does allow you to upload that same tracking number on their website. If you can't provide proof of tracking, customers can claim item as not received on eBay. But you can always message the buyer and give them the tracking info to their inbox.

2) Changing Delivery Address. If you change your delivery address to an address that is currently a suspended seller, this will create a link between both accounts. Though you can always prove to eBay that you have no relation by calling them.

3) Competition. The seller might notice that you are the same person buying their product for many customers everyday. Though it might be good business for them, there is a chance that they will feel threatened. So they might report you or play some dirty tricks on your listings to kick you off the market.

This technique is similar to dropshipping, so give it a try if you want.