For a couple of decades now, so-called "dropshipping" has been a plague of internet marketplaces, online stores and many websites selling merchandise.
"Dropshipping" is the act of advertising and selling a product, often in a manner that deceptively makes it look and sound significantly better than it actually is, asking a hefty price for it, and then just ordering that product for a small fraction of the price on one of the Chinese online shops on behalf of the customer.
For example: An online market listing, online shop, some website, or even sometimes a minor (or even major) celebrity, advertises a really cool new electronic gadget, like a new type of game console, or some kind of new type of smart watch, hyping it up and making it look like a really powerful machine with tons of features, and asks something like 200 USD for it. However, when you buy it, what arrives is some cheap Chinese knockoff product that's being sold in one of the Chinese online shops, and which may cost something like 10 USD there. The dropshipper, of course, just pockets the extra 190 USD.
Some more elaborate dropshippers will actually order the product to themselves, then repackage it to make it look like their own, and then send it to the customer, giving the illusion that it was indeed manufactured and sold by the dropshipper himself. Other lazier ones will simply redirect the purchasing order to the Chinese online shop and have them send the product directly to the customer. The dropshipper doesn't need to do anything other than redirect the purchase and collect the extra money.
The key points, and which makes this an outright scam (and which at a minimum borders the illegal in many countries), is that the fact that the product is just being purchased for cheap from a Chinese online shop is kept as hidden as possible from the customer, and the asking price is absolutely exorbitant compared to the actual price (often 10 to even 100 times more.) The advertising is also usually deceptive (which in itself is illegal in many countries.)
While there are some similarities to genuine resellers and shops, both physical and online, that resell products from other vendors, the main difference is that these genuine resellers don't try to hide the actual origin of the product, don't use misleading advertising to try to make the product look significantly better than it is, and they only take a rather modest cut from the sale. Usually these legit resellers have direct deals and contracts with the original vendors. The resellers might eg. sell the product in a country where the original seller doesn't, and take a modest cut.
However, there are some "reseller" shops that are significantly closer to actual "dropshippers" than legit resellers. And these go way back. The practice is much older than one might think.
For example, go to one of the richest areas of the United States, in Hollywood or any of the other super-rich areas full of multi-millionaire celebrities, and visit some shop there that sells eg. furniture and home decoration. These items will usually have absolutely exorbitant prices. Prices that one couldn't even believe are possible. For example a simple small decorated night table might cost half a million dollars, or even more. A set of simple wooden wall decorations might cost several million dollars! Even the cheapest items in the entire shop will usually cost at a minimum several thousand dollars, probably several tens of thousands.
When people have investigated the origin of many of these items, they have often found that the exact same items, such as furniture, is being sold eg. at Walmart and other cheap shops at a small fraction of the price. The exact same ornamental table lamp that the rich area shop is selling for 50 thousand dollars might be sold at Walmart for 20 dollars. Not just a very similar-looking lamp, but the exact same model, by the exact same manufacturer. And that's no exaggeration.
These furniture shops in these super-rich areas might not be engaging in false advertising per se, but that's just because they don't have to: Just being a big super-fancy furniture shop in one of the richest areas of the country, surrounded by multi-million dollar mansions and celebrities, automatically adds prestige to all the products being sold. The products being even slightly ornamented, having some decorations, all by itself gives the product prestige and perceived value in that shop in that area, without it having to even be advertised.
And many of these multi-millionaire celebrities just buy these items for their asking price. They usually don't even care nor ask how much they cost (and these shops know that perfectly well!) They just see a product they want, and they just order it, and they don't even ask how much it costs. If it costs a million dollars, then so be it. And who cares if the exact same product is being sold at Walmart for 100 dollars?
And this has been going on for quite a long time in the United States, probably at least 50 years or even longer.
Funny thing is that many of these multi-millionaire celebrities know this, but they don't really care. It's more a question of prestige than anything else.
So, these shops for the super-rich are, in a sense, "voluntary" dropshipping shops. Most customers know what's happening, but they don't care.
I suppose that makes it less objectionable than the online dropshippers who are scamming poor people who don't know better.
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