Buying vaping supplies from Ebay?

[Sgt.Rock]

Ebay for me most times...

As has been said, Caveat Emptor!

A wary shopper is a happy shopper! Pay attention to all the details!

 

[Stringplucker]

I've bought the majority of my stuff from Ebay...and as far as I know, everything that has come with the authentication serial number has been the real deal.

However, I'm friends with the owner of the local vape shop, and feel guilty at times for not throwing business his way, so I have been buying more from him lately. Those items that he doesn't carry due to it not being popular in the area yet, I buy online. Those items include coils for clearos he doesn't carry, like the Aspire BDC and Kanger T3S. I use his shop mainly for my favorite juices, and he's starting to carry some of which I buy online, so I'll buy from him and pay a bit more for the convenience. Let's face it...I live in a small town area with limited options.

My Ebay purchases has been all but one eGo style batteries, Aspire nautilus (Ebay had it before the local shop did), iClear 16 clearos and heads, and the Mini PT3.

What I refuse to purchase on Ebay are flavors and DIY liquids...it's a trust factor for me.

 

[-mj01-]

I scan ebay daily for good deals on items I either need soon, will need sometime in the near future, or things for which I'm actively "window shopping". I've grabbed many things at a deep discount to the prices of actual online shops. I won't pull the trigger on a bid or BIN unless that is the case (including shipping costs).

I also won't consider pulling the trigger if I even think that the description is not matching the exact product I want. If I even suspect that the product is not a genuine item, I won't consider buying.

I've also found one supplier through ebay that I would not have found off it. My wife recently began vaping and her preference on PV is much different than mine. The clearo her PV takes is not "mainstream" by any means. I've only found a few suppliers who sell her preferred clearo. Of those three, the supplier I found through ebay (at his "online store" - which doesn't show up well in the search results when searching for vape products and is not listed on this board) is the only one who offers what I believe to be a "reasonable price" for the item I'm after.

 

[catilley1092]

Like Stringplucker mentioned above, I try as much as possible to support my personal distributor. He & his wife are getting their feet wet in the business & I want to see them succeed. She makes really good juice & he knows the tech side fairly well.

Just bought a Efset dual bay digital IMR charger from them, it was only $32, $3 more than the lowest eBay seller & much less than online vape suppliers. Fortunately, he had a couple & brought one right over, the extra $3 doesn't matter to me, they do have to earn a living. I look up some things on eBay & if I want it, will always ask them first if it's something they carry.

However, yesterday he told me while showing me how to re-wick coils, that I could get the wire/wick for much less on eBay than from them & instructed me as to what to buy. They're honest, many would sell their customers 10 feet of wire for what I paid for 100 feet.

Cat

 

[BostonVape]

bought my kayfun off ebay (before the maker started his own website) and I always buy wire through TEMCO on ebay.. ships the same day and always reliable.

 

[BostonVape]

I've bought the majority of my stuff from Ebay...and as far as I know, everything that has come with the authentication serial number has been the real deal.

However, I'm friends with the owner of the local vape shop, and feel guilty at times for not throwing business his way, so I have been buying more from him lately. Those items that he doesn't carry due to it not being popular in the area yet, I buy online. Those items include coils for clearos he doesn't carry, like the Aspire BDC and Kanger T3S. I use his shop mainly for my favorite juices, and he's starting to carry some of which I buy online, so I'll buy from him and pay a bit more for the convenience. Let's face it...I live in a small town area with limited options.

My Ebay purchases has been all but one eGo style batteries, Aspire Nautilus (Ebay had it before the local shop did), iClear 16 clearos and heads, and the Mini PT3.

What I refuse to purchase on Ebay are flavors and DIY liquids...it's a trust factor for me.

lol yea I agree the only thing I would never get off of ebay is juice.. another reason why i'm hesitant about getting juice from the classifieds as well.. you just never know

 

[JackInCali]

I love Ebay for vaping supplies. Bought my VTR startup kit for $60 when my local vape shop sold it for $140.

 

[shelley cerata]

How is it not the vendors fault, if they are reselling items once it's known that they are counterfeit? (If the seller didn't know, that's a different story, but it seems to be a pretty well-known issue by now). I think that's actually typical of what the problem with buying name-brand stuff on eBay can be - everyone can pass the buck about counterfeits and the people who are actually selling the fakes both get their money and get away with it. But then I used to work in IP law protecting trademarks and chasing down counterfeiters....

That probably wasn't the vendors fault. A whole lot of vendors bought bulk batteries that claimed to be AW batteries through Alibaba. Problem is, AW doesn't sell batteries to or through Alibaba.


As for myself, I've bought a lot of things via Ebay over the years including vaping supplies. Check the vendor feedback and look for the Ebay Guarantee on the page, and if they have it you can be secure in your purchase.

 

[Weizenheimer]

Well if someone has 99+% positive feedback with hundreds of feedbacks (a real word?) left, you can probably be pretty comfortable with the source. Online reviews etc. would tell you about the actual product.

 

[Vicshalls]

if ebay has something i want but they dont do such a hot job on the description i ask questions. if they give me solid answers then i will go with it. right now i asked a guy about something two days ago and i have not heard back. so needless to say i have kept looking. But for the most part everything i have gotten from there has been great. i have used some of the same people that others have stated. vapingtown2013 is a great seller. i get everything from him very very fast. faster than some of the good on line reatilers that we all use. the retailers seems to get things out a day or two after you order and if i order early enough vapingtown has it out on a truck that same day. i always order first thing in the moring on pay day so being cst that is early for most retailers.

 

[Stringplucker]

vapingtown2013 has great feedback rating. I've purchased a few things from them.

To me, feedback rating is important...it shows me that I should be able to trust them and their product. If they don't have a rating of 99.5% or higher, and at least 1000 feedbacks, I don't bother. Other than a few minor non-vaping items, I look for free shipping as well.

 

[catilley1092]

vapingtown2013 has great feedback rating. I've purchased a few things from them.

To me, feedback rating is important...it shows me that I should be able to trust them and their product. If they don't have a rating of 99.5% or higher, and at least 1000 feedbacks, I don't bother. Other than a few minor non-vaping items, I look for free shipping as well.

Yes, not only the percentage, but also the number of feedbacks counts for a lot. There's been only 4-5 times that I bought from sellers with less than 100 transactions & those are where I got burned the 2 times mentioned previously (maybe not in this thread). However PayPal had my back covered on those, they were computer related items. One was a counterfeit XP Pro install CD & COA, the other was a WD Backup drive & all that was sent was a Chinese coin instead.

Both times, PayPal refunded me in less than 72 hours after reporting counterfeit software & a ripoff with the coin for a backup drive. Neither seller could be contacted for resolution, automatically awarding me by their non-response. Plus I had reported the software purchase (with pictures) to Microsoft, I had forwarded these with MS's response to PayPal & eBay.

BTW, MS sent me a genuine XP Pro install package for reporting to them, along with a letter thanking me for helping to track down these distributors. I wasn't expecting this & it came a week after the refund, so I got what I wanted for free on that deal. This was in 2009, Genuine Full version XP Pro cost $299 back then. I paid somewhere around $90 for the fake one, but I wasn't as aware of these things back then.

One reason that PayPal can make amends fast is that the sellers doesn't get their cash for 2-3 weeks after the transaction, longer for non-power sellers.

I'll continue to make purchases on the eBay site, but only after researching what I'm getting, reviewing feedback & carefully reading all of the listing before committing to purchase. And again, if my personal distributor doesn't have what I want. I don't expect them to order a quantity of items that may or may not sell & I'm advised when this is the case. Sometimes, I'm offered an item, such as a tank, that's just as good as what I was looking at, just a different brand.

Cat

 

[Cait Sith]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone. It has really helped!!

Sent from my HUAWEI H881C using Tapatalk

 

[boomhower1820]

I've bought quite a bit off ebay lately. Two KFL+ clone, Nemesis clone, coils. Do not buy mech batteries there though. I like buying clones as they are already fakes. Getting fakes of the real stuff is much more likely, with batteries being a particularly popular thing the fraud on.