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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: benwood who wrote (127996)	1/9/2017 8:13:06 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	1 Recommendation Recommended By Cogito Ergo Sum Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 220378

I'm fascinated by the global market created by by firms like Amazon, eBay, or Alibaba. If you don't have an exclusive on a product you're quickly competing against the very lowest price competition. And anyone with any smarts shops around. As an example I like to use UK made Robertson's Mincemeat as a chutney accompaniment with salads. The first two bottles I bought on Amazon were sent by an individual living in Northern England. The next 10 bottles were less expensive and were supplied by someone living in the Channel Island of Jersey where they don't pay the UK VAT and they shipped them in 5 different parcels to avoid any US customs duty. Now the bottles are also available with 2-day shipping for 3 cents more than the Jersey vendor - from a seller in 20 miles away from me in California who has them staged in various Amazon warehouses. So when I ordered two bottles, one came from San Bernardino CA while the other came a day later from Baltimore MD. I'd buy directly from the California seller but they only sell through Amazon. With the big plunge in the value of the UK Pound after the Brexit vote, I've found a Sony and other electronic items are far less expensive on Amazon.co.uk than they are from Amazon - even after taking into account the higher shipping costs from England. When we were stocking art glass supplies, if you're willing to wait for a month the price from China direct by China post is far lower than you'd pay a local vendor who already waited the month for those items from China. It's all quite amazing to me. Most of these vendors are individuals or families. My little brother buys and sells a lot of stuff on eBay but I have no idea how profitable it is for him overall. Little brothers are tight-lipped about things like that with their big brother - although I'm sure he'd be crowing if it were a significant amount of money.