That's crappy. I was hoping they'd be a reliable seller. I'll still keep them on the radar and give them another try if they have something I absolutely want.
Actually they're a good seller and easy to deal with, all my 3 purchases from them was shipped the next day and was received less than 2 weeks/10days. Bought 2 X9 from them.
They've been good to me so far. My X9 also got to me in less than 10 days. ebay seller 'redlog' also beat the 10 day mark. They seem to be better at getting the product shipped immediately compared to the popular china websites. Of course, how international post takes it after that is completely out of their hands. Sometimes the parcel manages to wait in limbo after dispatched.
I forgot to post the final update:
The ebay Flames arrived after 10 days and I received the BLF Tank007 four days later. The MF purchase was made Thursday evening HK time and the ebay purchase the following morning at about 10:00 am HK time.
This wasn't even a Power Seller compared to the Chinese ebay giants and I've never used them before. They have zero negative feedback in the last month (405) and 3 in the past 6 months (1630), which is good for 99.8%. Also, the Flames did in fact process through Shenzhen.
Maybe I'll have to try another 'ebay vs MF/KD/CNQG Challenge' in the near future. For now it's only Solarforce-sales vs KD as I just made purchases from each yesterday.
I don't have any experience with ebay as far as flashlights are concerned. Could it be that the difference in shipping (ebay vs Manafont) is that ebay sellers offer fewer products but actually have them in stock and maybe Manafont is more in the DX vein in advertising products that are not yet in stock?
In the past (before learning on here that they are faster) I always assumed that ebay sells were just taking orders and then drop shipping via DX.
The main problem I see with ebay sellers is that there are no reviews on those lights and most are not the exactly same ones found on DX or Manafont.