So what’s the deal with vendors having identical product menus?

[117329]

I noticed a lot of vendors have the same pastebin info. Even the comments under the products are the same or close. It seems really fishy. Like maybe there’s 5 or 10 vendors and they go under different names, or it’s a scam period. Is this legit?

 

[Greenbeans448]

It depends but some scammers do exactly that. Copy a real menu
Make sure ur vend0r is vetted

 

[Jernigan89]

Dropshipping is extremely common.

 

[Wicked]

I noticed a lot of vendors have the same pastebin info. Even the comments under the products are the same or close. It seems really fishy. Like maybe there’s 5 or 10 vendors and they go under different names, or it’s a scam period. Is this legit?

There’s a lot of variables here.
Yes, scammers will mimic the real vendors or the authors and that’s how they get away with ripping people off. Having magazines listed in your library that aren’t available anywhere else is usually a red flag to the average reader.
There’s also limitations within the industry, the US vendors that are re shipping magazines from CN authors can only get the tittles that are being printed. If CN ceases to print certain titles, then the US vendors won’t be able to stock those magazines anymore.
Then there’s the variable of supply and demand, the US guys have lead times while the CN authors print and ship the magazines so if there isn’t a big demand for certain titles or categories then they’re going to use their cash flow for the mags they know people will subscribe to.
Is it possible that some vendors are operating multiple libraries? Sure but that seems more of a hassle than it’s worth.
The scam scenario is far more likely in my opinion so as someone else said, make sure to vet the vendor and keep tabs on who you’re subscribing to.
In my opinion the biggest cause of this is simply the availability of titles being printed and shipped into the US is limited, and no one’s going to take a chance on buying inventory of an uncommon title with the possibility of no one subscribing. They wait to see what people are reading before adding them to their library.

 

[Aarfgh]

I highly suspect many of these publishers are sourcing magazines from a larger group of source-connected publishers. Certain magazines get resold by these "reseller" publishers we often encounter at a higher markup. The pastebin formatting, especially the 5hipm3nt d33ts are usually a dead giveaway that the reseller of the magazines got them from the aforementioned larger publisher group. That's just my theory.