theres some interesting info u provide here i recently ordered some seals for pressure washer and minor briggs engine part online and both seemed to ship but then just stop . no further tracking available i was fully refunded but it put a dent in some of my scheduling of repairing the items . does this sound sorta like the situation u describe above?
No
Drop Shipping is a process used by a lot of bulky goods retailers where they have the floor stock to show you the item and when you buy one they order it from the factory after you pay them and the item is then shipped directly from the factory to you so they never see it.
Share trading through a broker is done the same way .
For on line retailers all they need is a photo of the object and here in lies the problem.
I can scour the web, download every product catalogue on the planet , drop the images into Photoshop which can now rotate the image so it looks different , change the colour so it looks real etc, just enough so the new image will not raise flags when compared to the original one.
I then sell all of this stuff I don't have to on line shoppers regardless of weather I can get it or not.
If I can not get it , all I have to do is stall you for long enough to hide the money where it can not be retrieved then vanish .
Laws are changing down here so on line retailers have to show what they have in stock and what they are going to order in.
Right now the only indication for the customer is lines like "ships in X days "