is there a way to avoid sellers who drop ship?

[twilightasylum]

is there a way to avoid sellers who drop ship?

[femmefan1946]

Well....

The item will be mass produced.

The items will show up over and over with different sellers at different prices, but with identical pictures and descriptions.

The seller should be showing the location of the item, but will more likely show his own location.

Your best bet is to Search using Highest Price or Highest Price plus Shipping First, rather than Best Match.

This means you drill down through a few dozen items to your price point, rather than up through hundreds to find something that is not mis-described or mis-labelled.

Dropshipped items almost never use the Global Shipping Program. If the supplier is in the USA, he is probably savvy enough to use USPS First Class International rather than the more expensive, but easier to find Priority International.

[i.am.vivian]

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@twilightasylum wrote:

is there a way to avoid sellers who drop ship?

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Don't buy from China.

[momcqueen]

Your first clues that an item will be drop-shipped are often (but not always):

• Multiple listings with the exact same photographs, titles and description from multiple sellers or
• Sellers with an impossibly high number of listings and associated negatives for items not as described or received

It can be difficult to spot a dropshipper but in many cases, they are located overseas. This is not intended to stereotype nor discriminate. And you must remember that with the push to use the product catalogue, many non-dropshipped items may have the same photo with their listing too.

If you want to know absolutely, you must send a message to the seller in question. Ask, 'Where does this item ship from?' and 'Do you have it in-stock and in your personal possession'? Look for photographs that are detailed and offer a hint of professionalism but also demonstrate fairly clearly that an actual person took them. Ditto for item descriptions. The canned copy is easy to spot after awhile.