Any risk in buying products from ebay that ship from foreign lands?
 

Good price on a crankset, BB included

But it ships from thailand or china

If I was buying sunglasses, I would assume they're fakes. But in the case of ultegra bike parts, I'm under the impression that fakes dont really exist.

Can you guys confirm?

Does the seller have 99.9 - 100 % feedback with a good long history ?

I can't say for sure one way or the other, I'd just wonder why you assume that high-end sunglasses would be fake but high-end bike parts wouldn't be.

Personally I'm wary of anything that ships from abroad for a few reasons. From countries known for producing fakes you could have a fake. You could get stung for import duties when the item arrives, and if anything goes wrong with it you'll have the devil's own job trying to get warranty service. Chances are you'll be expected to ship it back to China at your expense (and you paying import duties when it hits China), and then getting stung again for import duties if it ever gets shipped back to you.

There is always a risk when buying from a stranger on the internet, doesn't really matter where they are. You just have to decide if it is a good enough deal to justify the risk.

I figure there's a high chance anything from China at a real good price is fake.

Do a search for the video on the fake Thomson stem one guy bought off eBay from China.

You're right about shipping. Not much you can do there but there are no duties on items marked as 'warranty return' or 'warranty replacement'.

To the OP if the price seems too good to be true it probably is.

For parts the sites in the UK (grey market) are pretty much the lowest prices out there. If you find something quite a bit lower than that I'd be suspicious.

One would hope there would be no duties on warranty replacements but if it were as simple as that the duties on anything would be easily dodged by simply writing "warranty replacement" on everything.

Agree with the whole "too good to be true" line.

I always figure on looking at the local price from a reputable online retailer (being in the UK I usually gravitate to chainreactioncycles and Wiggle) and in order to justify taking a punt on an unknown overseas retailer the price has to be lower by a sufficient margin to make it worth the risk, and also still low enough that I'd be willing to just abandon the product if it did turn out to be less than expected. Those two criteria usually disqualify anything of low value on the basis I might as well buy locally for £5 as online from abroad for £4, and anything of high value on the basis I don't want to risk losing the entire purchase price.

It is but it could also catch up with you and create problem in the future if abused.

Pay with PayPal only and deal with those with many positive feedbacks.. I have many times from China and NEVER a problem, just use common sense

yup

FWIW, Im only referring to products from reputable sellers with good feedback, that are discounted from retail price but not some kind of ridiculous deal thats too good to be true.

I have purchased from offshore sources ( Asia Pacific) no problems - the advice to check out seller ratings is right on. As far a fakes - not sure probably 'Gray Market" meaning that they are selling parts not as a first line dealer. If you are worried about warranty service I would probably buy locally. My only frustration is the time to deliver from offshore. That said, communication on order status and shipping has been good.

I'll order small things like a chain catcher or maybe a cheap stem but I wouldn't order a crankset. Whenever I've ordered something from mainland china on Ebay it's really really cheap (but I expect it).

I've ordered a couple things from Taiwan and they are usually fine but take a long time to arrive.

Just remember they can have great feedback even if it's a knock off. I did order a red crankset off ebay through a US seller recently that was obviously a new take off w/o a box but was a really good deal.