Reselling or Outsourcing. A scam?!

hitmeasap Level X⁵

November 22, 2016, 11:55 am

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Reselling or Outsourcing. A scam?!

Freelancers,
We all know that it could be rather easy to earn a few dollars online. And we know you can earn anything from a few cents to literally an endless amount of money by selling other people's services. - That's called Reselling. You are basically buying low and you're selling for a higher price. - This is a HUGE thing. Even though some of us might be aware of it.

I've done it myself back when I sold Social Media services for instance and you can even find offers from sellers on SEOClerks who've stated this in their Service descriptions. ("Resellers will get this and that or whatever").

Anyhow, I came across something rather interesting. A person claimed this to be not scam in it's true form but somehow fraud at least. - I think it's wrong to call it that.

What do you guys think?

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Lynne

Well if you think about it there are very few things that you buy that you will receive straight from the person that has manufactured it. Most things have passed hands a few times before it reaches the end user.

I don't think that it is a scam or unfair in any way. I know that there are some really good sellers here that buy a number of different services from different sellers and package them up together and resell them as a completely new service. I buy some social media promotion services and I know it is a package deal of other services that are resold together. I even know exactly which some of those services are and who sells them.

The point is that I am not just buying the actual work done, I am buying from the seller too. A seller that gives excellent customer services and has taken the time and effort to figure out which services work well together and he manages all the little orders so I only have to place one.

Do you go into a supermarket and complain because perhaps the milk you buy was not purchased directly from the man that milked his cow?

8 years ago

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hitmeasap

This is my thoughts exactly Lynne & I couldn't agree more with you on this. With all this being said though, people seem to believe that they're dealing with the seller directly, 99.5% of the times, which in my opinion is rather odd to think. Sure, there's obviously tons of sellers out there who's doing everything on their own, support, deliveries and everything and it sure does depend on the service or product too. But I'd say that something about 3 out of 10 people are doing some sort of outsourcing or reselling, but to me, it seems like the buyers believe it's more like 1 out of 50 people who're doing this.. - And I find it strange.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Well I mentioned to you just yesterday that someone is paying me to publish their guest post on my website but they don't have the time to write it... and quite frankly neither do I, so I added on my "management fee" and placed on order here on SeoClerks with my favourite content writer.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. I never said I will write it, I said I will happily provide a written article.

And in this type of situation it also works out very nicely since the content writer I am using is already very familiar with my website so I will be happy with the content.

8 years ago

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hitmeasap

Yeah! I can't see anything wrong with that at all. You get paid, you hire someone and that person will get paid.. And the buyer will get whatever he paid for.. If you think about it, it's actually a nice thing to do, as more people will be involved and benefit from it. - That being said, I've seen people selling services they buy for a few dollars for hundreds of dollars.. And in those cases, well, then I'm actually NOT for it. - That's an act of greed and even though I can totally see why they're doing it, I still think it's bad.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Oh yes I totally hear you on that one and I also agree with you in a way, but then again if someone is willing to buy a service for that amount then they most likely haven't done their research have they?

8 years ago

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hitmeasap

That is a very good point Lynne and I don't think it's entirely wrong in these scenarios. However, if you buy Social likes or whatever for $1 and push the price to $150 and are trying to sell these on a regular basis, then there's a "fraud" attempt in my opinion.

However, if you are approached by a client and that client is willing to pay $150 for it, then there's a whole other question.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Well yes I would say that is taking it just a little bit too far, especially since social likes are most likely going to be fake! I might pay $150 for real followers that are in the target group of people I am looking for and are interested in what I am doing... oh wait...that is what Facebook advertising is for

8 years ago

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musicandmagic

Im late on this but I guess every store in the world is a scam then. Walmart, Target, fine dining establishments etc. I guess the day we walk into a restaurant and see the chef kill the cow, chop it up then cook and serve it to us directly, will be the day we see an establishment that does not outsource (have a middle man)

7 years ago

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hitmeasap

LOL! - That's an awesome example. Thank you!

And yeah, I do understand your point and I agree with you all the way.. But how would you explain that to someone who really tends to believe that outsourcing is a scam then? - I mean, I don't want to bring up your entire "chef, chop and cow" scenario for each person I meet.

Do you have any suggestions on that one?

7 years ago

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chetaseo

it may seem as if it is not scam or bad as most will claim that it is like they are buying from the manufacturer himself but the real question is this; Are they truly buying from the manufacturer himself or just taking advantage of the seller offering it low due to heavy competition and they, themselves, buying it and reselling in another freelance site at higher prices?

8 years ago

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Lynne

Yes I hear you, but if I can buy a service here and sell it elsewhere for double the price then what is stopping the original seller from also spreading out to other market places and raising his or her prices?

I do believe that each person is ultimately responsible for his or her own success. If I am able to buy your services, double the price and sell them elsewhere then surely that is a skill I have and we both earn money.

I do hear what you are saying about the heavy competition and I do find that so sad that some sellers keep dropping their prices to stay in line with what other people are selling them for.

For me though, I see a cheap price and my first thought is that the quality of the service is then cheap.

8 years ago

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hitmeasap

During the time I sold social media services I got approached by literally hundreds of people, obviously buyers but a handful of resellers too. Even though I was in fact reselling social media myself during the time, I managed to get resellers. They could find buyers where I couldn't reach them at the time, so I just thought, "why not?".

I earned more, they earned and their clients where happy and satisfied, and that's the most important thing for me. As long as the clients are happy with the results, then I'm okay with resellers who's reselling other resellers services or whatever. It's fine. However, I don't like people who's trying to squeeze every cent out of their clients by providing bargain cheap services for hundreds of dollars. I think that's unethical and rude.

8 years ago

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Everett

I sell mostly things I create.. in fact all my services are of my own creations. I do not like reselling other people's services. I have done it in the past, and didn't like it. Simply, and bluntly put: it's a pain in the ass. There is numerous problems that occur, and will occur if you are a reseller. This seems to be a common theme among resellers: they always have problems and it takes forever to get the end result. Once you get that end result it's something entirely different than what you initially ordered in the first place, or the end product doesn't fit your specifications.

I think I am merging into world of selling my creations, and being my product basically. I sell code, and it seems to be working. Surely, I could sell more, and I hope too but at some point in the future, I am too busy to do that now..

I think ultimately in the future, we as humans will probably work together to help one another other than trying to compete to be rich. Hopefully that's the case.. but if you need to earn a quick buck, resell to your heart's content.

8 years ago

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MasterA

Well, some companies sell the iPhone 7 32GB at the market price of £599 while other people sell it for slightly more. At the end of the day, selling above the market price is not scamming at all. It is not my fault if my customers don't research my competitors before buying and end up buying it at a much higher price. If I buy from someone and sell it for higher, effectively, the party that I buy from becomes my competitor and just because my customers doesn't know that there is another party sell the same thing for cheaper, it isn't really my fault. This is using asymmetric information to earn a profit and definitely doesn't count as scamming. Thats like saying if Supermarket 1 sells crisps for £1 more expensive than Supermarket 2, then Supermarket 1 is scamming; of course not.

Lots of people do this and there is nothing wrong with it.

8 years ago

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anwebservices

Not a scam! If seller is ok with that you resell, and if your buyers are happy with the price and service they get, why would it be wrong or bad.
As Mike said, we all buying things from resellers every day, from bread and milk to cars and houses, so why is SEO or social media services different story... That's just fine to resell of outsource

8 years ago

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Cristian

I don't see it as scam, I did it a lot myself in the best, reselling and some of my clients (just a couple) manage to figure out I was feeling and to be honest here, I understand why they would be pretty pissed off about this since I sold them at double the price the original seller was offering that specific service.

Got called a scammer, plus all the other names in the book, since then I learned to offer more personalized and unique services, even though I'm buying from someone else, the services gets my personal touch that makes everything total unique.

8 years ago

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ProAdvert9

What the person say, is like if you not buy a good or service directly from the manufacturers, then it's fraud. And we know that the entire global economy is based in reselling & trading...

7 years ago

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keyanage

Problems:
#1) Seller does not provide therefore creating backorders /angry clients
#2) Buyer is not satisfied with work provided
#3) Buyer rejects/requests refund

You are left owing money and having no explanation, unless you know you have numerous back up plans in place or can do the work manually then it is not worth reselling in my opinion it is like dropshipping. But saying that I do resell, because if push comes to shove I can do the work or contribute to the works quality.

7 years ago

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overcast

Some of the buyers unreasonable expectations can be something to consider as well. I have noticed that reselling and the outsourced is something these days is going on. But from what I have noticed that outsourcing has it's set of the difference. And that's something I guess many people learn by experimenting. I am sure each seller and buyer have their own experience that takes time to understand.

7 years ago

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overcast

I don't think this is a scam. Buy low and sell high seems to be the market strategy in every world. So this can't be a scam. Making people make stuff for less can be one issue. Some of the time reselling the content can be the wise choice. As that can save you from spending the lot of money creating it. So that's one method never be called as scam.

7 years ago

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augusta

I don't get it what is so scamming or defrauding about reselling. Even offline a lot of things we buy are sold by resellers.So do we also say they're scams.A reseller buys set his or her price if you don't like it we move along to the next seller and that's it.I see no problem here.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

If you mean the outsourcing of the service that is sold is a scam, I don’t think so because that seller is very enterprising. We call that brokering, a scheme where an agent finds work and outsources it to another person. In the construction business, there are such people here who finds job for carpenters and mason that they earn a commission when the work was done and the worker was paid. It may not be ethical to some people but I don’t think we can call it fraud or scam unless the broker lies about the work.

6 years ago

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Jeane

There is nothing wrong with being someone who finds work and hands it over to others who will work for less money than he was paid. As long as the people who are hired don't object then they don't lose anything because they needed the job and get paid at the end of it.

In fact since it can hard for people who are just starting out as freelancers to find work, this (working for middlemen) could be a good way to gain some experience even though you won't earn much in the process.

6 years ago

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