This is common in Australia and there are some problems. Any faulty goods purchased here are to be returned to the merchant (rather than manufacturer) and some

This is common in Australia and there are some problems. Any faulty goods purchased here are to be returned to the merchant (rather than manufacturer) and some of them make this very difficult by providing a local sender but a foreign 'return' address. I'm pretty sure it's not strictly legal, but it's too annoying in most cases to fight it. It also gives them a local business address so they can advertise local shipping but a lot of the time you have to wait for the next cargo shipment to come in so something that should take a few days now takes a week or two. This can be helped with reviews but we all know how those get gamed now with sellers flooding reviews or shutting down and starting as a new account. These are both differences that arise from a business not having a real local presence, but just the bare minimum presence 'for show'. Luckily, most of them are fairly inept and make themselves obvious on eBay by pasting Australian flags and Koalas all over their store pages :)