Using Amazon FBA fulfilment. What to do with Item Location policy?

[pm-store-us]

Hi guys.

I am a seller from Ukraine. We have moved most of our stock from Ukraine in the US to Amazon warehouses to make shipping to our customers faster and safer.
Our account has been flagged as violating eBay Item Location policy.
We cannot know the exact location of each product, because Amazon distributes goods throughout lots of warehouses and ships the goods to the client from the warehouse closest to the client.
What do we need to do? What item location to specify?
How do the thousands of other sellers who use Amazon to fulfill their orders deal with this problem?

[katzrul15]

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@pm-store-us wrote:

Hi guys.

I am a seller from Ukraine. We have moved most of our stock from Ukraine in the US to Amazon warehouses to make shipping to our customers faster and safer.
Our account has been flagged as violating eBay Item Location policy.
We cannot know the exact location of each product, because Amazon distributes goods throughout lots of warehouses and ships the goods to the client from the warehouse closest to the client.
What do we need to do? What item location to specify?
How do the thousands of other sellers who use Amazon to fulfill their orders deal with this problem?

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They use Amazon to fulfill AMAZON orders - I do not use them typically to fulfill e-Bay orders.

This question should be asked on an AZ forum, not e-Bay.

[pm-store-us]

Did you read my question? If you are not using third-party fulfillment that's not mean that nobody uses it.

My question is: what Item Location you are filling for orders fulfilled from your Amazon FBA?

[r_lresale]

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@pm-store-us wrote:

Did you read my question? If you are not using third-party fulfillment that's not mean that nobody uses it.

My question is: what Item Location you are filling for orders fulfilled from your Amazon FBA?

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Yes, your question was read and understood, and you have actually answered your own question. Location policy is in place to avoid drop shipping which is against ebay policy. Third party isn't allowed for this reason. 

You can have items you OWN stored in a center that ships YOUR items directly to your customers on your behalf, but you CAN NOT list products that you haven't bought yet, then get an order, and then buy that item from another company or 3rd PARTY and give them the address of your buyer. This is ebay so you can't fulfill ebay orders by using amazon fulfillment. ebay doesn't even recognize their tracking numbers. 

You CAN'T list an item location because you don't even know where the item is coming from or if the item is available. So not knowing where item location is sounds like something drop shipper would do.

Good Luck!

[r_lresale]

ETA: You might want to rethink your listings as it appears that you tried to get around that pesky item location policy mess by changing item manufacture location as Ukraine. I'm sure this was an oversight and not done with intent 😁

[pm-store-us]

Thank you. Yes, I read that they could think that I'm a drop shipper and this is not allowed. I wish I could prove that I'm using my own stock. I sync my stock in real-time. First time I used an item location in PA where we ship products. But I realized that amazon dispersed my stock around the country to ship to the customer from the nearest warehouse. The same SKU lies on both the west and east coast to make delivery faster.

By the way, eBay allow to choose Amazon as shipping carrier for shipped orders. That's one more prove that its not prohibited.

Changing the item location as Ukraine will be not the best way, because that's not true at all.

[r_lresale]

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@pm-store-us wrote:

Thank you. Yes, I read that they could think that I'm a drop shipper and this is not allowed. I wish I could prove that I'm using my own stock. I sync my stock in real-time. First time I used an item location in PA where we ship products. But I realized that amazon dispersed my stock around the country to ship to the customer from the nearest warehouse. The same SKU lies on both the west and east coast to make delivery faster.

By the way, eBay allow to choose Amazon as shipping carrier for shipped orders. That's one more prove that its not prohibited.

Changing the item location as Ukraine will be not the best way, because that's not true at all.

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You may not be considered a drop shipper with amazon but here you are because there is a third party involved and again this is ebay why would they support amazon fulfilment its simply against policy. I'm pretty sure if you sold ebay products on amazon and tried to use ebay fulfilment (if it existed) wouldn't fly there either. It is literally like using ebay to sell a competitor's product and advertise competitor marketplace. 

Yes you can upload an amazon tracking number all day long but it's simply useless as amazons shipping is different than any carriers ebay supports. If someone opens an item not received case, you will lose because there will be no proof of tracking on ebay site and as well if a buyer returns for item not described you will be required to refund and ebay will send a shipping label to buyer for them to send it back. I'm sure that's when ebay will realize you are using amazon and in addition to having your account banned they will take your money for that sale as well. 

I didn't mention using Ukraine as item location, I said you changed all the manufacture location to Ukraine in details. We can try to spin this all day long but at the end of the day it is drop shipping. Anyone's opinion of whether this is considered drop shipping or not or whether its shady or not is of no relevance. If ebay says you are then you are its against their terms of service it's that simple, they set the rules and we follow them. If we don't like it we go to another platform.

[dhbookds]

devon@ebay 

Could you provide the OP with some information/direction of where to get info on this?

I know some big sellers here in the US have various warehouse locations from which they ship.....and guess some may use Amazon Fulfillment......  complication is, of course, this seller is from the Ukraine.....

@pm-store-us   I'm asking an ebay employee if he can help.........

[pm-store-us]

Thank you @dhbookds  
I'm not thinking that it has any kind of complication from where is the seller. I'm just had to do something to keep in business, especially at such time.
I have checked my inventory, one of my item amazon divided to 13! warehouses. Of course this has sense, customers will receive their order much faster. My buyers like that. But according to Item Location policy - eBay could recognize me as a violator.

 

[dhbookds]

@pm-store-us 

For all I know......could be different rules for US vs international sellers selling in the US....just wanted to be sure he realized you were in the Ukraine....

You/your country certainly have my support during these times.........

[dbfolks166mt]

     It appears you have been doing this for quite some time and although eBay may have flagged your account you still have over 1,000 items up and have sold 222 items in the last 90 days three of which were on 11 October so at least they have not disabled your account. 

     Since you are utilizing the Amazon FC's to store your items that may be relegated to using Amazon to sell and move your items. Drop shipping has always carried added risk to for the seller since they are not actually handling the logistics of the sale. 

[r_lresale]

I'm not sure from the picture where a warehouse is?? but it looks like your invoice or actually looks like a manifest I get when I buy pallets of product. Is that what you are doing except amazon is storing them? If so then that is acceptable for amazon rules and for their site. I understand now why you don't think you are a drop shipper because you aren't for amazon. Here in the US the amazon fulfilment is 3rd party and for purposes here you are considered drop shipper as the fulfillment center is considered off site and those are products you haven't actually purchased yet. Here this activity is viewed as shady at the least. I wasn't trying to be confrontational, but I was trying to explain it to you the best way i knew how so that you could understand.

As another poster said there are different rules depending on origin country and such as well as cultural differences where some countries certain things are acceptable when another country finds it unethical.

[devon@ebay]

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@dhbookds wrote:

devon@ebay 

Could you provide the OP with some information/direction of where to get info on this?

I know some big sellers here in the US have various warehouse locations from which they ship.....and guess some may use Amazon Fulfillment......  complication is, of course, this seller is from the Ukraine.....

@pm-store-us   I'm asking an ebay employee if he can help.........

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Thank you for the tag @dhbookds! After looking into their account in this insistence I would recommend that @pm-store-us reaches out to our customer support here to get more account specific help on this. 

[lacemaker3]

@pm-store-us,

Until a few years ago, it was possible for sellers with multiple locations that they shipped from to avoid giving an exact location (meaning the zip code) for each item. The item location would just show "USA" rather than giving the city and state where the items were located. About 4 years ago (2018) eBay started to tighten up the item location policy and enforcement, probably to address fraudulent sellers who claimed their items were in the USA when they were not. At that time, sellers began to have trouble posting listings without giving a zip code for the item's location.

Apparently, in 2020 - 2021, eBay started to develop an API that would restore this functionality for sellers who store/ship their items from multiple locations. However, they don't seem to have moved on from beta testing, and it's not clear if the beta test is still going on or if it has been abandoned.

https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-multi-location-shipping-api/

You are correct, that technically the eBay rules about dropshipping do allow you to use a service like FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) as long as the items being delivered actually belong to you, and you are not purchasing them from other retailers after the eBay transaction is made.

However, it does not appear that eBay currently provides a way to make that feasible or workable for eBay sales. I believe that FBA was intended to enable and expedite sales on Amazon, and eBay may not want to encourage sellers to use it for eBay sales. Some buyers don't like it, and have complained about it on the boards.

[ittybitnot]

reaches out to our customer support here 

devon@ebay 

Does that link for CS lead to the out of country outsourced call center reps?  If it does, I would think our OP needs something else.