When researching eBay's Wholesale Lists category I noticed a disturbing trend.

Too many sellers in this category are barely on the right side of eBay's policies which makes one wonder if there's more that eBay could be doing to protect buyers.

The best way I can illustrate this issue is to give an example of a typical bidder to one of these auctions.

(enter hypothetical scene)

I'm searching for a new trampoline for my kids, I enter a search on eBay and see several listings that catch my attention. After some research I come across an auction with a starting price of 97 cents. I like the picture and the start of the page contains information related to the trampoline so I quickly look over the rest of the auction. I then see some text that is very hard to read because of the high contrast in colors so I skip right down to bid, after swapping high bids with other bidders I find my bid has just won.

I paid $148 for my new trampoline, I think it's a fair price, but wait ...

I get an email with links to wholesale suppliers, and I find out the auction I just won was not an actual product, and after going back to the auction in question I notice all the hard to read text spoke of the auction being a digital item and not the actual item pictured in the auction.

(end of hypothetical scene)

OK ... many would argue it was the fault of the bidder for not reading through the auction, and as an auction seller myself I would agree. However, how many bidders just skim through an auction because the title and price caught their eye. I have it happen all the time to me, bidders get to excited and don't pay attention to the auction, and as a reputable seller I always refund their money.

There will be many sellers who disagree with me here but I believe the sellers of the Wholesale Lists category are taking advantage of unsuspecting buyers. They hide behind private feedback and block their bidder history so potential bidders can't see what others have been saying. The seller's claim is to protect their product and the bidders, but in reality they don't want potential buyers to see the comments left by people who feel they were ripped off.

PayPal does not offer buyer protection for digital items, and the sellers are stating in their auction that they do not offer refunds because of the digital nature and not being able to get their product back, but in my opinion if their product was worth anything they shouldn't be concerned about those who may take advantage of the money back offer. If the product was good enough, a seller can stand on the quality of the product and be proud to sell it.

All in all, the top sellers in this category are providing links to what they call wholesale sources, some auctions are for specific items and only include a handful of links, and others give you thousands of links to wade through.

Bottom line ... 99.9% of it is junk, I have purchased the lists of the top five sellers and I can't believe they are getting away with selling their lists. I think one seller actually got booted because they are no longer a registered ID. (at least there's some hope eBay may be working on this)

When a buyer gets into a situation like this, they realize they made a mistake by not reading the auction carefully and because of that, they feel as if they have no recourse because the seller stands behind their compliance with eBay policy and after all, the bidder didn't pay attention to the auction which isn't the fault of the seller.

BUT ... and this is a BIG BUT

The top sellers have all had bids reaching in the hundreds, and I saw a few closed auctions with final bids in the $500 range. Now, who in their right mind would actually pay $500 for a bunch of links to sites that are not really wholesale dealers.

One could even argue the listings state "wholesale list" in the title, but a buyer could take that as meaning the seller is listing the item at wholesale list prices, or it's a wholesale listing.

My point with this article is to help educate, because many of the bidders are new to eBay and are looking for ways to source or find products to resale on eBay. If you really want to buy one of the lists from this category you should stick to buy it now auctions and stay away from the regular auctions. The sellers who are selling lists with a BIN (Buy It Now) are selling the same information as those in the top sales.

My opinion of the lists remain the same though, even if the list is good, the links will become saturated very fast. You're better off finding your own products you can check out an earlier article I have here at BellaOnline for help with finding wholesale sources with the search engine.

Powerseller Secrets To Finding Products To Sell On eBay

Another great place to learn about true wholesale sourcing can be found at Chris Malta's site ...

Visit World Wide Brands to learn about real wholesale sourcing.

If you have any questions regarding this article please let me know . . . Scott