EBay is overrun by Amazon dropshippers and destroying my business

[mixedbagmosaic]

Try this:  Search "iridescent stained glass sheet". 

When I did that search just now there were 86 results.  72 of the listings were items dropshipped from Amazon or other online venue.

Then I searched "stained glass mosaic tiles" and 1110+ and the odds got a little better, but approximately 1/3 of the listings were dropship items.  I believe that is because of several hang-on sellers like me that have been doing this for a while.

Some of these dropship sellers had huge inventories of all types of items.  One in particular was a top rated seller with 6900+ items listed in their store, 99.4 positive 11750 FB.  However, when you read the negative and neutral feedback, many of the complaints mention items that came from Amazon some with an Amazon gift receipt,  no tracking number or bogus tracking number, incorrect items shipped, slow or no shipping and lost items.

The photos and descriptions are almost always the exact same as the Amazon listing.  Some get clever and put a banner in copied photos to make it their own.

I tried reporting items and every response message thanked me for my report and said this was a bot message and soon I received another message saying there was no violation of eBay policy according to their bot.

This has really gotten out of hand on a huge scale.  EBay needs take the initiative to get this under control.

[ckimodog]

@mixedbagmosaic 

Sorry for your frustration.  From what I've reading on these forums, eBay IS doing something about it.  We see many drop shippers, most from the middle east, Turkey, Morocco and other countries are being stopped in their tracks.  Most can no longer sell the the US market as the customers are either receiving the wrong items or nothing at all & some are just outright suspended.  I say GOOD.  I agree eBay needs to get a firmer grip on this situation.  Drop shippers hurt us all in my opinion.  Very few benefit. 

Happy Selling

[ckimodog]

@inhawaii 

Knowing some of these sellers who know very little about how to sell on the internet, they probably added that feature & posted it in their listings.  lol 😆

[broto_64]

I've actually wondered if using AI descriptions can help label a seller as a dropshipper, among other things of course (such as stock photos). The sad about it is dropshippers really do hurt all of us, they are usually the clueless seller who hasn't a clue as to what it is they're actually selling, they have zero inventory control and worse, generally a pretty good disregard for playing by the rules.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

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@theteamsetguy wrote:

@chpgts ,

FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) is not free. Amazon charges a fee to the seller to store, pack and ship a sellers inventory.

For many sellers its cheaper to use FBA than hiring employees, and renting warehouse space.

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And in many cases, the FBA charge is lower than the seller would pay using USPS. UPS or FEDEX.

BUT most sellers who use FBA multichannel fulfillment opt for plain packaging not Amazon packaging. They have that choice.

[mam98031]

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@annadryl wrote:

I've had a few items arrive via Amazon over the years but lately it seems Walmart is more of the thing now. Ordered on ebay but dropped of by my local store. Sellers use their WM account to pay and it's "shipped" from a mile away. That bugs me way more. That's valid to Report.

The Amazon thing is kinda old news. Then again, the WM thing is 'newer old news'. There is probably a word for that...

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I've noticed the same thing.  I think we see it happening more in recent months because sometime before that WM didn't allow dropshipping.  They clearly are now, so the seller is getting some kind of a price discount, they aren't paying full retail.  So this is a legit dropshipping arrangement.

When this has happened to me, the items I got in I paid less for to the Ebay seller than I would have if I'd of gone directly to WM.  So while unexpected by me, at least I didn't pay more.

[mam98031]

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@bashort wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

Drop shipping is not against the rules of Ebay if done properly.

Sometimes sellers sell both here and on Amazon.  And some of those sellers have their inventory stored in the FBA program Amazon offers.  So when the Ebay sellers ships something they sold here it comes out of an Amazon warehouse, but it is the sellers stock.

There are lots of sellers that sell on both Amazon and Ebay.  

I hope things work out for you.

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Some signs that will very likely determine if the items in question are being drop shipped from Amazon to ebay or just sold on both is that if they are drop shipped the ebay price will usually be at least 35% or so higher than the Amazon price to cover ebay fees and leave a tiny margin, also they will be Amazon prime items with free shipping on ebay. And the seller will have 10's of thousands of listings with stock photos.

And the feedback will be littered with "seller canceled sale" and came from Amazon ect

From a couple of drop shippers that I studied they tend to price all items with the same add a set % method.

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Our experiences are different.  When I've purchased from an Ebay seller that uses Amz FBA to fulfill the order I have NOT paid more than it was being sold on Amz.  I'm pretty good about checking around for pricing on something I'm looking to purchase.

Ebay sellers that are using AMZ prime to ship from AMZ are not breaking an Ebay rule, but they sure are breaking a rule on AMZ.

Sellers that cancel transactions because they are out of stock get a defect for each one of those.  Too many and the status of their selling account reduces.  Sanctions can come into play as well has higher FVFs.

I"m not defending any of these sellers.  I'm just stating some of the stuff that happens.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

It's also cheaper for many sellers (and especially offshore sellers) to scrape AMZ listings, hold no inventory and have them shipped from AMZ sellers as a gift.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

The price is a good indication  the seller is a dropshipper using a Prime account to get FS. If it's lower than the price on AMZ it's not a legit FBA seller.

[mam98031]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

The price is a good indication  the seller is a dropshipper using a Prime account to get FS. If it's lower than the price on AMZ it's not a legit FBA seller.

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That has not been my experience.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

Dropshipping, per se, is not a problem.

Amazon in its days when it was a bookseller, had most of its book sales dropshipped by Ingram Books.

Ingram was and is a wholesale, and drop shipments from them showed the seller as the seller, were accurately filled and promptly shipped if they were in stock. Access to their inventory levels was and is available to the sellers.

Use of Walmart and Sam's Club to dropship has been going on for years, mostly by Amazon sellers but apparently by Ebay sellers more recently. It is severely hurting the sites that buyers use, who wants to go back to where you were suckered into  paying a 20%+ higher price.

No way that Walmart likes it either. I have seen the customer service line in the local store stopped when a customer wants to return their Amazon purchase, is angry about being offered a refund substantially below what they paid, and the clerk has to go find a manager to explain to the buyer they were scrooged.

Thank social media for promoting this get rich scheme, here and abroad.

[bashort]

Quote "Ebay sellers that are using AMZ prime to ship from AMZ are not breaking an Ebay rule, but they sure are breaking a rule on AMZ."

I believe that they are in fact breaking ebay rules.

from ebay drop shipping policy

"listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your customer is not allowed on eBay."

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/drop-shipping?id=4176

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Mam, you have sold on Amazon as have I, and you've never seen it mentioned?

Amazon does not want 3P sellers selling below their AMZ price on any other site.

[mam98031]

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@bashort wrote:

Quote "Ebay sellers that are using AMZ prime to ship from AMZ are not breaking an Ebay rule, but they sure are breaking a rule on AMZ."

I believe that they are in fact breaking ebay rules.

from ebay drop shipping policy

"listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your customer is not allowed on eBay."

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/drop-shipping?id=4176

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Ebay has a very simply Drop Shipping policy and it does not prevent a seller here shipping to their buyers from stock they have in an AMZ warehouse.  The seller is NOT purchasing the item from Amz nor another seller.  It is the Ebay sellers stock that is stored in a AMZ warehouse.

What you quoted is called Retail Arbitrage, but that is not what an Ebay seller is doing when they ship stock they already own but stored at an AMZ warehouse.

Now if an Ebay seller actually goes and purchases from some other seller on Ebay or any other site to fulfill and order they have from an Ebay sale, that would be retail arbitrage and therefore against the rules.

[mam98031]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

Mam, you have sold on Amazon as have I, and you've never seen it mentioned?

Amazon does not want 3P sellers selling below their AMZ price on any other site.

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That is something Amazon has no control over and it likely isn't legal if they tried to enforce that.  Amz IMHO comes dangerously close to price fixing far too often as it is.

[broto_64]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@bashort wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

Drop shipping is not against the rules of Ebay if done properly.

Sometimes sellers sell both here and on Amazon.  And some of those sellers have their inventory stored in the FBA program Amazon offers.  So when the Ebay sellers ships something they sold here it comes out of an Amazon warehouse, but it is the sellers stock.

There are lots of sellers that sell on both Amazon and Ebay.  

I hope things work out for you.

---

Some signs that will very likely determine if the items in question are being drop shipped from Amazon to ebay or just sold on both is that if they are drop shipped the ebay price will usually be at least 35% or so higher than the Amazon price to cover ebay fees and leave a tiny margin, also they will be Amazon prime items with free shipping on ebay. And the seller will have 10's of thousands of listings with stock photos.

And the feedback will be littered with "seller canceled sale" and came from Amazon ect

From a couple of drop shippers that I studied they tend to price all items with the same add a set % method.

---

Our experiences are different.  When I've purchased from an Ebay seller that uses Amz FBA to fulfill the order I have NOT paid more than it was being sold on Amz.  I'm pretty good about checking around for pricing on something I'm looking to purchase.

Ebay sellers that are using AMZ prime to ship from AMZ are not breaking an Ebay rule, but they sure are breaking a rule on AMZ.

Sellers that cancel transactions because they are out of stock get a defect for each one of those.  Too many and the status of their selling account reduces.  Sanctions can come into play as well has higher FVFs.

I"m not defending any of these sellers.  I'm just stating some of the stuff that happens.

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Only in theory.

In reality these sellers send a message to the buyer with some sort of "our warehouse burned up last night and we won't have this item for about three months, would you like for us to cancel the order?" and  when the buyer replies "yes" the seller cancels for reason "buyer asked," and avoid the defect.

This is dishonest but also the item sold remains listed and available for more buyers to purchase (and also get cancelled without repercussion to the seller). Worse is when an entire page of listings all belong to various dropshippers all using the same fulfillment method, order another from another seller and that gets cancelled too, and another, and another, and each one takes 2-3 days to complete so it chews up the buyer's time ... Why, if they're all out of stock, do these listings fill up my search results?

I've ordered from five and six of these characters in a row before, all cancelling on me for reason "problem with buyer's address / buyer asked" when none of that was true. Worse still is that reason puts a blame on my record as a buyer and yes, enough cancellations of that nature and my buying account is affected but they don't care and I still don't have the product that I need!

What if it's an expensive product, say $200 item and four and five of these sellers in a row don't have it... The cancellation and everything, takes days for the credit to come through so now I have over a thousand dollars worth of pending nothing on my credit card tying up my ability to purchase!

I have to consciously resist the urge to dive into anger, such is the animosity I feel towards dropshippers.