Ebay Flagged my Account as dropship, but I don't dropship my items

[sneakerzium]

I was labeled as dropshipping by eBay on July 9th. I lost my top rated seller and now am above standard. As a result my traffic is down from about 800,000 impressions per day (average over a month period) to about 74,0000 per day (average over a month period) now. The decrease started with a 50% reduction and it kept getting worse until it reached a 90% decrease.  My promoted listing no longer works and all my search results are basically displayed at the bottom of the page. I have 134 listings with a mix of variation listings in there. I take all pictures of my items and my inventory is physically with me. I have have a 99.26% tracking uploaded and validated on time out of 1882 listing… and a 0% defect rate. Basically a perfect record on ebay.  

I ship within the same state but from different zip codes because I send the inventory to two different locations  and have done so for years now with no problem. I have reached out to ebay multiple times (10 times) over facebook messenger and through email and all of my appeals have been declined. They stated that I have to wait 1-2 months to see improvements and I can not afford to wait that long as my business is basically going downhill. When I was going through the appeal process I showed ebay my invoices and pictures of all my items and the appeal was still declined. I persistently tried many times but they would not approve it. I have called multiple times on the phone also with no results. As you can clearly see from my page all my items are in hand, and I ship everything out within 2 business days so there’s no possibility that I am dropshipping. But ebay insists that I am and wants me to wait 1-2 months before there are any changes made to my account which is beyond ridiculous and frustrating. 

This is how I’m rewarded by ebay after being an ebay  seller for years and have always provided 100% customer satisfaction. 

Any advice, feedback, opinions would be greatly appreciated. 

[maros9416]

I'm positive it was the pools. The one you sold 700 of and the other with the stock photos. Whether you do have the pools or not, it fits the profile. One review that was left is telling you that you are price gouging and should be in jail. It has 56 likes. No doubt somebody dropped a dime. 

[carlqsportscards]

I remember a similar post a few days ago. The multiple zip codes came up in that one also. Maybe there's some new artificial "intelligence" unleashed by ebay.

[mam98031]

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@maros9416 wrote:

I'm positive it was the pools. The one you sold 700 of and the other with the stock photos. Whether you do have the pools or not, it fits the profile. One review that was left is telling you that you are price gouging and should be in jail. It has 56 likes. No doubt somebody dropped a dime. 

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Whether or not a "stock photo" is used has NOTHING to do with dropshipping or Ebay saying someone is a dropshipper.  One has NOTHING to do with the other.  

While certainly there are photos that certainly appear to be what most of us would determine is a stock photo, but we aren't always correct.  Ebay now has a program for mobile users to edit their pics onto a white background.  That can make a photo look like what some define as a stock photo when it is not.  That program will eventually come to all of sellers no matter the device they use to create listings or pics.

Stock photos has nothing to do with some "profile" Ebay has to determine who is and isn't a drop shipper.

@maros9416 

[mam98031]

@sneakerzium 

We've had this conversation before.  While I do think it is wonderful that you are seeking other opinions, it really isn't going to change much for you.  Ebay REQUIRES that the zip code you use on your listings is accurate to where the item is shipping from.  Anything less than that just isn't going to meet the requirements Ebay sets forth for our listing structure.

Ebay can easily track this via the tracking numbers.  So there is no way to get around this.  

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/item-location-misrepresentation-policy?id=4244#:...

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

Nothing is likely to improve for you until you resolve the zip code issue and then give Ebay time to realize that you have fixed the problem.  This isn't likely to be an overnight fix.  Just letting Ebay know that you have fixed your zip code problems may not be enough for them to lift the restrictions on you.  They may want some time to pass so that your shipping actually shows you have resolved the issue.  But with that said, it sure wouldn't stop me from contacting Ebay and pleading my case with them once I fixed the zip issues and try to get my account back on track.

[lacemaker3]

@sneakerzium;

Having more than one zip code that you ship items from is allowed, but ALL listings are now required (see below) to have an actual zip code and not just the city and state (which used to be accepted).

I see 306 total items that you have listed, but when I do a zipcode search, only 297 of your items are located within 10 miles of 71101, which is a zip code in your location, Shreveport, LA. That means that about 9 of  your listings don't have a zip code in the item location. You can use the Bulk Editing tool to add the zip code (whichever one is appropriate for the listings that are missing one). Once the problem is fixed, it appears that it will take a month or a few months of continuous compliance before the restriction is lifted.

This requirement was announced in the 2020 Spring Selling Update. The links in the text quoted below will take you to a tool to check for missing item location zip codes:

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2020-spring/ship.html#zip-code

[lacemaker3]

@sneakerzium, I investigated your listings a bit further, and I found that you have 9 listings that do appear to have a zip code in the listing, but they are located in Baton Rouge rather than Shreveport (about 215 miles away, at least the zip codes are that far apart). 

So, a couple of questions for you:

• Do you always ship the Shreveport items from Shreveport, and the Baton Rouge items from Baton Rouge? Or do you sometimes collect the items and maybe ship them from another location than the one that was shown in the listing? As mam98031 suggested, that could be causing a red flag.
• The background in your pictures appears to be the same in all the pictures no matter where the items are said to be located. That seems odd. Would you be able to keep the items in a single location and always ship from that location if it resolved the issue? Because it might help.

Unfortunately, eBay will not explain exactly what is causing accounts to be flagged. Probably because they don't want to teach the non-compliant drop-shippers how to avoid being detected. So all that you can do is try to make sure that you are complying with all policies.

[maros9416]

I understand about the stock photos, however the OP mentioned specifically that they do not use stock photos, but this one had one, which is why I made the reference.  The listing that ' fits the profile' is the one with over 700 sales of a particular pool. We can guess all day, but by whatever means eBay determines someone is a drop shipper, can be called a profile or red flags or any name you'd like.  If you have 700 sales of one item and it is way above all of your other metrics, and use multiple zip codes, and perhaps a stock photo to boot, I'd say that meets the criteria to eBay. Mostly all of the posters who claim they don't drop ship have either admitted to it in the past or are on the fringes what is considered drop shipping or not.

  The difference between a white background and a stock photo is the fact that it is a stock photo has been professionally taken and paid for, also coming with intellectual property rights that only skate the line on the internet. You can not make photo copies of someone's trademarks and post them in your store window without permission. Which is why companies try to keep their IP tight and issue such items to authorized dealers only. When the stock photo is being used against them to sell their items for more or less than their suggested retail, they can take issue with that.

[sneakerzium]

Hi, thank you for the reply and yes I have always been shipping last this for nearly 5 months now with no problems at all. And no I can't move my inventory it is too inconvenient. They denied my appeal and I have to wait until August 14th to put in a new one and hopefully then that'll be resolved.. or I will have to send a letter into corporate, probably wont do any good. eBay has been of no help no one wants to talk on the phone. Live chat support rudely ended the conversation when I tried to reason with them. My business is dying so I had to move it to another platform for now, which sucks.   

[sneakerzium]

The point is eBay employees should be able to be trained properly where they can look at the account within 5 minutes and determine it is not droppings and lift the restriction. That is not hard at all. I don't understand why they say I have to wait 1-2 months to see improvements. Makes absolutely no sense when someone could manually look at it and clearly see that I am not drop shipping a single item. I literally pay eBay thousands monthly they could at least hire 1 competent person to do the job... 

[sneakerzium]

It still doesn't make sense to how that shows I am drop shipping. The reason they flagged my account was for drop shipping  which I am not doing. 

[dhbookds]

Did you do anything about the zip codes?

[jm_goldensales]

Hey my friend, how did you appeal the flaggin they did? Only by messages or phone? im flagged too and i will like to appeal

Thank you!

[sneakerzium]

I was told by eBay that I did not have to so recently I was unflagged on August 14th as stated by multiple representative but I never received an email from them saying that as well. MY impressions/ traffic is still low as ever it almost feels like I have to relist every single item and see what happens.  It was like no change occured on my account my listings are still displayed at the bottom of the search results every time you look up the sku. It always used to be top 10 atleast. 

[sneakerzium]

Message and phone it was appealed but I never received an email from them at all everything is so vague and my traffic / impressions is still down I'm going to try and relist all my items and see what happens.