Checked something on eBay only to see someone else using *my* Mercari pics to sell *my* item on eBay.
Had a look through the rest of his 1,236 items, and just stealing people’s pics and hoping things don’t sell between an eBay sale and a Mercari buy is his business model.
If you’re selling any bigger ticket items on Mercari etc here you might want to check eBay to see if it’s appearing there too.
I asked on eBay in English if he still had it etc and he just stuck my ad wording through Google. Called him out in Japanese and he’s all “失礼しました。…but you have good things for sale, do you want to do something together?”
If you want to try turn a profit buying to sell, have at it but stealing my good pics etc and lying to people about things you don’t even have? Gtfo Taro.
Edit: took out the eBay user/shop name.
22 comments
That actually sounds nice… That indirectly increases my item visibility, I don’t care if someone gets more profit. When I’m selling a secondhand item, I just wanna get that sold asap.
Isn’t that a win-win solution?
>**If you want to try turn a profit buying to sell**, have at it but stealing my good pics etc and lying to people about things you don’t even have? Gtfo Taro.
If they’re able to buy your listing, and then re-sell it and still make a worthwhile profit (even after the fees and packaging) then you priced it too low in the first place.
Wait, are you suggesting he’s just stealing the pics, and selling his own copy of the item? That’s lame, but can be fixed with a watermark if you really want to fight it.
Are you suggesting he’s scamming people, and the items don’t exist? Report him, although buyers are probably protected by the site and their credit cards anyhow.
If you’re suggesting he’s buying items from person A and selling them to person B at a markup… that’s arbitrage. It’s annoying but not illegal.
Both fair points well-taken. It’s mainly stuff leveraging some price gap/premium outside Japan and I’m more interested in domestic sales.
As much as anything just taking my pics wholesale and lying isn’t a good look to me.
I’ve bought studio gear on US eBay that is rare/way overpriced in Japan and sold it for a cut myself….but I get the item, check it then list it. Selling on items sight-unseen with intercontinental shipping involved if there’s any issue isn’t something I’d be doing.
I think it was a Twitter thread but I recall a hilarious story about a guy who similarly found out what was happening. Instead of calling out the seller, he created a new account and *bought* the item from the seller, then immediately changed the price of the item on his original account. So say, he was selling the item for ¥500, and the seller ¥1000, so he increased it to something like ¥200,000.
He later got an email from the seller that they want to cancel the purchase because they “don’t have it in stock.” The guy refused, saying it’s a valid sale and still expects the order to go through. Hilarity ensued. This guy kept trolling the seller, and I think eventually pushing the seller to delete their account.
So if you’re *absolutely* sure that it’s your item that they’re selling, you can give it try too. 😂
If it really bothers you, you should report it to Ebay. I’m fairly certain their policy supports dropshipping from wholesalers, but relisting your mercari listings is obviously not that.
Ebay’s [Images, videos and text policy](https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/images-text-policy?id=4240) does not allow sellers use images or videos copied from other websites.
On one hand, it’s possible to report the seller, and get the ebay listing pulled.
On the other hand, I personally see it as a service he is providing, where it effectively increases the exposure and potential client base for your item, and correspondingly the chances that your item will sell.
Can you watermark your pictures on Mercari? Or put a text graphic “For Mercari only” in Japanese? Or does Mercari not allow that?
Why is that even a problem?
Can you put a watermark on your photos?
Some companies do this though as their business. Essentially marketing overseas for domestic (in Japan) items on Mercari, yahoo auction etc. Their business model is that they buy the item domestically for the end customer and ships it to them (as Mercari etc doesn’t support overseas sales). Probably takes a fee somewhere along the way. Although I think the bigger ones might be actually allowing you to bid/buy the items through their system connected to these services APIs so it’s less of a flipping thing and more of a straight up just supporting shipping internationally for an extra fee.
If the guy you were in touch with was selling for overseas, I’d see it as a good thing. If they are trying to flip it domestically though fuck them.
Might also wanna censor the name from the OP not to break any rules…
Isn’t that what all middlemen do? They don’t usually hold stock. I don’t really see the issue. You’re still selling your item at the price you wanted.
As long as you sell the item, what do you care?
Eventually he will get bad reviews when he can’t sell an item and disappear.
There are resellers/flippers for every market. You can’t constantly search the web hunting for your items. Complete waste of time. Sell at your price and don’t worry about who’s buying it.
I’ve stopped selling on Ebay in favor of Yahoo auctions. Domestic transactions are so much less bother.
So if some dude wants to list my items on eBay, and incur all the risk that entails, I’d be willing to let him use my photos and description.
It’s win-win from my point of view: I get the sale either way, and now I have access to the international market with no risk exposure.
Arbitrage like this is a common business model. Most people actually buy the items first but not everyone. Some use software to monitor the source listings and pull down their eBay listings ASAP if the Mercari or Yahoo listing disappears.
It is quite a risky model because you can never be 100% sure that what is listed on Yahoo or Mercari is described correctly.
For new items, people source from Amazon.co.jp and list on eBay, and only buy after the item sells.
You can find people doing this in reverse as well. They live in the USA and source from Amazon.com and other sites, selling on Yahoo or Amazon.co.jp. They also only buy & ship after an item sells in Japan.
You can even find people sourcing on Amazon.com and selling on eBay.com, or sourcing on Amazon.co.jp and selling on Yahoo.
Lots of arbitrage based businesses out there and if you can automate enough of it you can eke out a living.
This is super common. If you look up certain items, they also get listed on these shady online shop shores that LOOK legitimate but most definitely aren’t. You end up sending money to nowhere, I assume.
I’ve had several buyers (buyee for one) buy my stuff and ship it overseas assuming for eBay sales.
From my side I don’t care, the item is sold at the price I wanted to sell it at. Usually these services don’t haggle and always give positive reviews.
Much easier than me having to hassle with overseas shipping and getting money from eBay (payoneer takes like 30 days?)
Not sure where the problem is here.
I actually see this often when looking for ball jointed dolls or anime related stuff. Sometimes people will straight up admit in eBay descriptions they are doing this because I have seen descriptions that say you should buy the item quickly because its being sold in Japan at the same time 😂 I believe they also steal pics from Mandarake as well.
The best thing you can do is report the listing, you’ll probably have more luck than I have had since it’s actually your pictures
So you are selling at a price you think is OK, and are upset that he is better at selling than you? Or are you upset over the copyright issues?
>Edit: took out the eBay user/shop name.
Put it back.
Happened to me too, I sell a lot and the photo setup I have is basically identical in every ad. I’ve sold to a few companies so far that have reused my photos for their ads. Not entirely sure if it’s worth pursuing because I don’t really care if they make a buck off of the used items I sell. Maybe I should add a watermark?