“I saw a beautiful ad on Facebook for a bull’s head,” says Izir Luist. “It’s beautiful to have under my glass roof.” The ad said it was handmade “from specially grown branches.”

Then it took so long to receive her package that she started to worry. Lawist: “When I finally received the package, it was much smaller than the dimensions stated in the advertisement. When I opened it, I had to laugh out loud, because there was not a branch to be seen. The entire bull’s head was made of plastic, so ugly.”

She wanted to return the bull’s head that cost her €45, but the website no longer existed. She found the company’s Facebook page, but received no response to her messages. “I only received a message after leaving negative comments under several of their ads: returns have to be sent to China and that would cost a lot of money, so I could also get my money back if I wrote a positive review.” L’Hoest didn’t want that, and after several exchanges of messages, she got a partial refund.

L’Hoest: “I was deliberately tricked and then blackmailed into giving a positive response.” She can now laugh about the story: She gave the plastic bull’s head a place in her garden.

Not according to the rules

Ezer isn’t the only one who has had problems with dropshippers. Research by the Consumers Association shows that many of these online stores don’t comply with consumer rules.

“We regularly receive complaints about these types of online stores, also known as dropshippers. That’s why we’ve now investigated 100 of these types of sites to find out exactly what’s going wrong,” explains Gerard Spierenberg.

What is dropshipping?

Dropshippers are online stores without their own inventory: if you order something from them, it will be shipped to you directly from the supplier. These are often suppliers from Asia, which means long delivery times.

It is often not clear to many customers that products come from another supplier. There are also regular issues with long delivery times and high return costs, which consumers are not properly informed about.

Dropshipping is not illegal, but these sellers must comply with Dutch consumer laws.

Online stores are obliged to report the supplier and the country the product comes from. However, it turned out that none of the online stores we checked did this. Also, it is often not clearly indicated that you must return to China at your own expense.

It is also necessary to mention the email address, phone number and chamber of commerce number on the website. But many sites were missing the latter.

hard to recognize

Many consumers find it difficult to know if you are dealing with a dropshipper. The Consumers Association tested this with 500 panelists. They were presented with five web stores and had to choose from three dropshippers. Only three panelists passed.

Hans Steemsma also found out he ordered from a dropshipper when he received a bad product: “I got an ad for a nice hat, a Panama model. It was supposed to be delivered folded, but there was a video I watched that showed it made a nice dent, but when I got the little plastic package, I was really scared of what might be inside.”

The hat turned out to be a completely different model than the one in the photos. So Steemsma wanted to return the hat, but it would cost 20 euros because the package had to be sent back to China. The hat itself costs 29 euros.

Steemsma told the online store that he disagreed with this, but has not heard anything since: “I feel particularly let down. It turns out that the company is not registered with the Chamber of Commerce and there is no address on the website.”

This way you don’t fall in love with her

Ordering something via Dropshipper doesn’t have to be a problem, but to avoid surprises and potential problems, the Consumer Association offers a number of tips:

• Long delivery times. Please note that it often says “ordered today = will ship tomorrow”;
• Free delivery, where the seller wants you to think that you don’t have to pay for delivery “today only”;
• No phone number (working);
• Not always a valid Chamber of Commerce number;
• There is no quality mark for a webshop, such as Thuiswinkel Waarborg or Webshop Keurmerk;
• Not always a business or visiting address;
• Big discount (so called) on many products;
• There is no return address, you must email if you want to return. If there is a return address on the site, it is often an address in Asia and is hidden in the general terms and conditions;
• There is no information about how much the return costs will be. It just states that you have to pay the return costs yourself;
• Bad reviews on Trustpilot, but only good reviews on their website;
• The website is partially in English, or the texts are poorly translated;
• Dropshipper often sells clothing or all kinds of gadgets.