neiname

We all know (or at least) should know about the live.com opportunity at Ebay. I had some different questions and need someone who sells more on Ebay to help.

Scenario
1. I buy Rock Band 2 for $189.50 Buy-it-now to get my 25% live.com rebate with free shipping plus I used an Ebay 10% coupon they sent me.
2. 3 days later I receive a new Rock Band 2 delivered by Amazon and I assume the seller paid the $189.99 going rate.

Assumptions
1. Seller is a power seller and has a ton of items in their store so I assume they are at the lowest commission possible.
2. Seller is probably doing this for most if not every item so highly unlikely they are using the bill-me-later $10 coupon for every transaction.
3. I'm not aware of any other straight up coupon Amazon offers so I don't think that they are using any.

Question
1. How is the seller profiting from this? I can think a few areas they would make $, such as, a) using a rewards credit card (mine is currently 1.25%), b) using a rewards site such as zbates/f-a-t-wallet or possibly they have their own affiliate site, c) collecting personal data, d) selling a warranty from SquareTrade (this must be it b/c I was offered 3-years coverage for $24.99 so they must get a pretty fat commission from that)
2. What is commission for rate a power seller like this for selling fees and paypal?
3. How much are Amazon affiliates paid to direct traffic to the site?
4. How much could they sell personal data for?
5. How much commission would they get from SquareTrade?
6. What margins could they possibly be getting after all this?

neiname

nothing?

stingermck

He had an Amazon gift card maybe?

DeepSleep

Could be another triangle scam. I think I read about it in another thread on here or maybe on another blog.

It goes like this:

Buyer buys something on online (this time it is ebay) and pays with legit/real money.

Seller buys the product online with a stolen credit card number/hijacked account and has the online vendor (in this case Amazon) ship to the buyer.
(Many times the seller will just open an account (this time Amazon) in the name of the buyer and pretend to be the buyer (since the seller has all the buyers info, name, address for shipping, etc and then pays for the purchase with the stolen credit card.)

The buyer gets his merchandise, the seller walks away with the legit payment from the buyer and the online vendor (Amazon) is left holding the bag when the real credit card owner reports the fraduent charge and does a chargeback to Amazon.) Amazon thinks the buyer is the bad guy and asks the buyer to pay for the item again with another credit card.

Its a great scam for the seller.

DeepSleep

Just another thought.

Since the merchandise was shipped from Amazon, there should have been a packing slip enclosed.

There should be both a billing address and a shipping address.

Your name/address should be listed for the shipping address.

The ebay seller's name/address should be listed for the billing address.

If your name/address is also listed as the billing name/address, then the seller opened an account at Amazon using your name and probably a fraudulent form of payment (credit card). (Although as someone else stated, the seller could have used a gift card.)

Depending on the invoice style, there could be a third name/address on the invoice. This 3rd name/address is the actual Amazon account holder. If your name/address is in this 3rd section, then this is definately a questionable account/transaction.

neiname

Billing address was the seller, he has been on Ebay for 6 years now and sells 40-60 items a day so not gift cards and I would think someone would have caught on by now. All signs point to a legit operation.

DeepSleep, I would agree with your thesis if this guy was 1 month old and sold thousands of dollars in the span of 1 week.

ernestrp

I beleive there was thread about this a little while ago.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/store-forum...e-what-do.html

excom101

My guess? He's making the purchases through his own Amazon.com referral links. At that volume, he gets a 6% kickback-- and Amazon handles the shipping. Even after eBay/Paypal's fees, he makes a tiny percentage for simply ordering things to be sent to your house.

excom101

That is... if this isn't at simple stolen credit card situation as suggested above...

hindolio

all i can say is that cash flow could be a very a good thing.

im sure the seller is making something somewhere somehow. else, seller would go out of business sooner or later. but besides that, cash flow is important even though it may seem, at times, like its just the same amount of money coming in as coming out of a bank account.

cerulean

I also bought something expensive (dslr camera) on ebay from a seller who was drop shipping from amazon. He priced it $5 less than what amazon was selling it for at the time. Even with various commissions and whatnot, it doesn't seem like the positive cash flow would be enough to make the effort worthwhile.

Anyway, I guess I lucked out as I had no problems and got a new camera for $200 less than the current price with the live.com cashback. It looks like something later went wrong as the last bunch of that seller's customers isn't getting their stuff. Before that, the seller was on ebay for 10 years with 100% positive feedback.

neiname

6% referral, 1.25% rewards credit card, some price discrepencies between what he sells for and Amazon having a lower price, plus the kickback for warranty sales I can see how this guy would eke out a profit.

excom101

I lie. At the volume you describe, the seller would be getting a an 8%+ referral fee.

Troy Stiffler

If he gets 25 orders a day, he makes an average $36k yearly income and sits around in his underwear, processing orders all day.

Too bad that there's sooo many people doing this right now. It's essentially what most of those eBay infomercials teach you to do.

Lots of people screw up at some point. It's always a hassle when stuff is out of stock and crap like that.

Cheato

^Nah, seems like he'd the kind of guy that would probabl pay someone else $35K a year to do that for him.

movieguru

According to their affiliate agreement, you can't place orders on behalf of customers, friends, relatives, etc. It can probably be tracked easily if they are using the same credit card for multiple purchases to different addresses.

Also it would be a hassle if people like the OP question why they are receiving items from Amazon instead of from the seller. With the volume the seller is doing this would be happening often. Also the orders may not be trackable by the post office, so if someone filed a claim you could be out that money.

2thompsons

Hi Everyone,

If the original person can post the seller ID I would greatly appreciate it.