Sellers with no stock

[rog555]

In the "report an item" listing, there doesn't seem to be a specific category for sellers who don't hold stock.  This is happening all the time and it's getting so bad that I'm probably not going to waste my time ordering on Ebay any more.  I recently tried to order 3 items for my sister's birthday.  One arrived.  The other two, from two different sellers, both messaged (not straight away, either), to say sorry, this is out of stock, would you like a refund or another item?  Both still list the items they don't have stock of.  What is clearly happening is that these people don't keep stock themselves, but list items from a wholesaler or manufacturer they use, which might or might not be available when an Ebay buyer orders.  If it's not available, they offer an alternative, or refund.  Ebay seems to be full of those kinds of chancers, and it's spoiling the buying experience.  There needs to be an effective way to report them and get them removed from Ebay.

[tommystrezures]

It is a possibility that they are drop shippers, and using other platforms to buy from and supply you with, this is strictly against ebay policy.

No doubt there are other times when a seller is genuinely out of stock, or there has been a delay in supply etc, however the seller should show a counter of whats in stock on the listing, eg last one or 10+ etc.

Ultimately it is item location misrepresentation is the closest I can see it being - eg the item is not in stock! So would I have thought been reported as Listing Practices, other listings/policy violations/ item location misrepresntation, would be the closest you will get. The other guys may have an alternative.

However when reporting to ebay, you will generally not hear back apart from the thank you for submitting your report message. Also if AI or the bots are adjudicating they will say nothing is wrong, which is also wrong. So that end its probably a waste of time reporting it to ebay.

[rog555]

Thanks.  I'm sure what I'm encountering is a lot of drop shippers, and it looks to me like Ebay is riddled with them nowadays.  As you say, against policy.  There should be a specific way to report that, and all Ebay (or their bots) would need to do would be to check how many cancelled orders and refunds they have (or ideally a human being could check their messages and see how often they are saying "I don't have this - it was a mistake").  Drop shippers will have lots of that going on.  If they are turning a blind eye instead, surely people will just stop bothering to order from Ebay.  It's only here that I keep having this problem.

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Its easy to run out of stock if your selling on multi platforms.

[plpmr]

" There needs to be an effective way to report them and get them removed from Ebay."

Indeed one could leave feedback to reflect such an experience - why not do it?

[rog555]

I will, but if they are sellers with thousands of feedback, it's not going to make a huge amount of difference.

[messier44000]

Before buying - Do you check sellers feedback. Will be plenty of clues regards  items 

being out of stock , drop shipping delays etc from other buyers , who leave FB

[eburtonlab]

I will, but if they are sellers with thousands of feedback, it's not going to make a huge amount of difference.

Buyers can select the numbers in the seller's feedback table to see only the negative or neutral comments in the last year, and quickly get a good idea of what kind of problems buyers have been having with any seller.