eBay Drop Shipper Buyers

Venunder

I had my first encounter with a Drop shipper yesterday.
I was not happy to sell my item to their customer for them, since Ebay rules suggest only wholesalers can do this? 
Was I wrong to give b_a_r_g_a_i_n a refund and ban them from buying from me?

Maybe they are legit. But as a seller their feedback should be public, and it was private when I checked it.

So I would say watch out for them. 

LuLego

So they bought your item but asked you to send it to a different address?

CCC

Venunder said:

I had my first encounter with a Drop shipper yesterday.
I was not happy to sell my item to their customer for them, since Ebay rules suggest only wholesalers can do this? 
Was I wrong to give b_a_r_g_a_i_n a refund and ban them from buying from me?

Maybe they are legit. But as a seller their feedback should be public, and it was private when I checked it.

So I would say watch out for them. 

If they paid the price you were asking for an item, then you should have posted it to the address they supplied via eBay/PayPal.

If you think they are dropshipping and want the customer to know about it, then you can always include an invoice inside the parcel, showing the price paid for the item from you and any advertising you want for your own store.

Shropshire

As per CCC above, the only thing to watch for is to only post to the Ebay/Paypal notified address in the sales record. The moment you send to another adressed supplied post-transaction all the seller protections drop away and you could be exposed.

If wasn't a new alt address, i'd have shipped. 

Also worth noting you may still have been charged by Ebay, they charge 10% of sale price of an item you cancel from your side (unless you put customer asked to cancel) but they allow first one per year for free.

Venunder

The "company buyer" asked me not to include any paperwork with the parcel. 
Which I am not willing to do.   

Since I am a private seller, selling part of my collection (because I have to sell rather than want to sell). Not being a business, I cannot provide official invoices?
An invoice might get the drop shipper into trouble with his actual third party buyer? But there could also be other implications for me. Particularly if the Dropshipper then treats the third party buyer badly.

Maybe, Ebay would have protected me, if I shipped to the address provided by the transaction, but the hassle of sorting out any problems would be too much for me to deal with in my limited free time. 

Beyond this the actual buyer/customer/collector should have had the chance to buy directly from me at my prices.
Unless they do not use EBAY? 

But beyond that, I am not happy to work for the Drop shipper without them paying for my time. 

Although I know there is probably no way to avoid selling to clever drop shippers. The rogue dropshippers are the ones I wish to avoid.

CCC

Venunder said:

Beyond this the actual buyer/customer/collector should have had the chance to buy directly from me at my prices.
Unless they do not use EBAY? 

The actual customer has had the chance to buy from you. If you listed it for sale on ebay, then anyone could have bought from you, the customer included. If they choose not to buy from you, or choose not to buy from ebay, that is not an issue. They have had the opportunity to buy from you.

The drop shipper paid you what you were asking for your item. I would have shipped to the address that was provided on the paypal / ebay payment.

Mr_Cross

I wouldn't have sent it either @Venunder. It seems shifty and underhanded. If everyone is above board about it, and you get a message to the effect: I had a sale, but it was accidentally out of stock and I'd like to buy the one you have, please feel free to include your own details etc. buyer is aware and happy, then I think it's fine.
I wouldn't want a seller (or a buyer for that matter) doing it to me without my prior consent though.

Shropshire

I'd have shipped.. I sold to a buyer who paid the price I wanted..... deal done... but i'd have shipped only to my purchaser and not to a 3rd party address outside of the transaction.

To me that's the important part here which is to refuse shipping to someone outside the transaction not about selling to your buyer.

CCC

Shropshire said:

I'd have shipped.. I sold to a buyer who paid the price I wanted..... deal done... but i'd have shipped only to my purchaser and not to a 3rd party address outside of the transaction.

Me too, to the address that was in the transaction. If the reseller had put the buyers address there, then it would have been fine.

There are some ways to beat resellers. Last year I had a load of Christmas polybags that I was selling on BL. I was doing them at £5.99 plus postage. I got two orders from the same account, with different addresses. It was obvious they were reselling, especially as they asked for no paperwork as they were "gifts". I also noticed a seller on amazon with the same account name selling them at £12.99. I sent them to the paypal address (which he was continually changing to the customers) but included advertising for my BL store. I kept mine for sale at £5.99, but increased my minimum order to £10. They knew they could still buy them at £5.99 but obviously didn't notice the minimum order change. I then got asked if I could lower my minimum order price, but I refused. He then placed another 6 orders for them but each one had a cheaper polybag included to take him to the £10 threshold. And each order again had a different address and a note saying please include a slip saying "extra free gift". No doubt he had continued to sell through amazon, and could not find another supplier to use and also could not have that many order cancellations on his account. After postage, he was paying about £11.50 or so for items sold at £12.99. Taking his amazon fees into account then he was losing money on them, not enough to cancel the existing orders but enough to stop doing it.

Venunder

Thanks for the ideas.
I might do something similar, if it happens again.

MaffyD

Ebay sides with the buyer in almost all circumstances. When you start shipping to addresses that aren't on the account that bought it from you, you are not only opening yourself up to unscrupulous ebayers, but unscrupulous buyers that order from drop shippers. It can get messy I imagine.

DB361

I've got two what seemingly are drop shippers that fairly regularly buy from me on ebay (mixnmatch55 and fomfitlingerie, if either of those ring a bell to anyone). As they're only buying £3.99 polybags from me, it doesn't bother me all that much, but definitely something I'm aware and wary of, especially if the value of the items increases.

MugenPower

It's been a long time since I've looked, but I remember seeing that if you're using PayPal and want seller protection, you need to send it to the address that's listed in the PayPal order and you'd also need proof that you sent it there as well if you want to claim protection.  You should probably reread what the terms say (along with eBay's terms) but I agree with the others that you're really leaving yourself open to potential issues by sending it to any other address.

CCC

Many dropsellers update their PayPal / ebay address for each order.

omnium

Did I miss it, or did @Venunder say whether the shipper was asking to ship to a different address, or not?

Venunder

I think the dodgy issue was really the lack of paperwork and the private feedback for the company.
The initial shipping address on the paypal account seemed to be legit.

I asked for the transaction to be switched to the ebay business address. But after my message they were willing to have the item shipped to an address outside of the paypal transaction.

Had they first contacted me and asked for me to ship to their customer I would have said no. But I would have offered to sell the item directly to the company at their EBAY account. I even offered to upgrade the postage  for free to get the item to them faster.


Had they cancelled the first order and then sent me a paypal payment and shipping to the business address, I probably would have sold my item to the business.
Since all "Ebay protections" would have been in place for both of us?

The third party could then not cause me any issues later if the final transaction from the company to them was dodgy?

Venunder

I have come across another couple of resellers abusing eBay.
mixnmatch
reuk219

They both seem to be selling at high prices on Amazon? or elsewhere but buying cheap from eBay.  Basically asking you to work for them for free. 
No paperwork to be sent with items etc etc.

Then leaving negative feedback for you when you will not do what they ask for.

You should probably avoid buying from them?
Or be very cautious if you do.....?

CCC

Venunder said:

I have come across another couple of resellers abusing eBay.
mixnmatch
reuk219

They both seem to be selling at high prices on Amazon? or elsewhere but buying cheap from eBay.  Basically asking you to work for them for free. 
No paperwork to be sent with items etc etc.

Then leaving negative feedback for you when you will not do what they ask for.

You should probably avoid buying from them?
Or be very cautious if you do.....?

You aren't working for them for free, any more than you are working for any other buyer for free when they buy the item you are selling at the price you are willing to sell at.

Presumably you are making a profit - and exactly the same profit - when you sell either direct to the consumer at your price or to the buyer that the other seller found.

The difference is the price the consumer is paying. 

Mr_Cross

No, the difference is the unnecessary negative feedback, they are making promises that can't be fulfilled by them or their outsourcing. They're doing a poor job and blaming others for that, don't defend them.

oldtodd33

CCC said:

Venunder said:

I have come across another couple of resellers abusing eBay.
mixnmatch
reuk219

They both seem to be selling at high prices on Amazon? or elsewhere but buying cheap from eBay.  Basically asking you to work for them for free. 
No paperwork to be sent with items etc etc.

Then leaving negative feedback for you when you will not do what they ask for.

You should probably avoid buying from them?
Or be very cautious if you do.....?

You aren't working for them for free, any more than you are working for any other buyer for free when they buy the item you are selling at the price you are willing to sell at.

Presumably you are making a profit - and exactly the same profit - when you sell either direct to the consumer at your price or to the buyer that the other seller found.

The difference is the price the consumer is paying. 

   Exactly. It doesn't matter where you are shipping to, you sold the item to someone and you need to ship it to them. If you think they are selling your item at a higher price to a buyer on Amazon then raise your prices. That should take care of the drop shipper. I have dealt with drop shippers that do this and have never had a problem, even with $400 sets. When I figured out what was going on, I raised my price on Ebay by $20 or so and the drop shipper went away and I made more money. 

CCC

Why are they doing a poor job?

I get drop shippers buying from me on bricklink, and I'm fine with it so long as they change their PayPal address so I have the seller protection any other transaction would have. They pay exactly what any other buyer would pay. 

Mr_Cross

They are advertising stock they don't have. If it's an honest mistake okay, they're trying to rectify that mistake but it's still poor stocktaking. If they don't have stock in the first place, it's underhanded IMO. The bottom line is that they can't fulfill the order.
I dunno, YMMV, I think that's a poor job.
Furthermore, if they are in the dung over it with their buyer, why should you go to any further lengths than you normally would. They need to accept your sales terms otherwise they're a rubbish buyer too.

CCC

Mr_Cross said:

They are advertising stock they don't have.

Yes, that is exactly the point of dropshipping. They don't have the items but can source them. The dropshipper finds customers that are willing to pay more for your items than you want for them. They get you a sale at full asking price for your item, and keep any excess after they have paid their fees. It works better longer term, especially if you want to keep using the same supplier, if you let the seller know what you are doing. They run the risk that prices change, or you run out of stock, or that no stock can be found anywhere at a price where they make a profit. 

Yellowcastle

This is all very interesting, thanks everyone.  Though not a reseller myself it would seem reasonable that a reseller may at times turn to other resellers to make their customers whole or to provide a one stop shop to meet their customer’s complete needs.  And if some of these resellers simply procure goods from one location which they can sell for a profit elsewhere, that is basically Econ 101.  The only thing here that seems icky to me is the address switching and non-transparency.

Balloonist

It all depends on your principles, but reuk219 is a sewer rat from the uk

He will contact you first, using your email address, with an Anglo Saxon name claiming he wants multiple products for his friends and will offer you a lower price with the completion out of eBay and PayPal..

Then, if you don’t respond, he will complete his purchases anyway and ask on each one not to include an invoice with the product. It is then you discovery his name is a very international name, he lives in a northern town, and wishes you to ship to people who live hundreds of miles away from his location.

When you cancel the transactions and refund his money, he will then leave you the negative feedback claiming you are the worst eBay seller ever. You then have to clear this up with eBay, report him and get the feedback removed.

it wastes your time and effort - I came across him earlier this year.

Where, personally, I don’t care if someone is drop-shipping my products, I do have issues with people attempting to defraud the systems and trying to circumvent eBay and PayPal protection.

Aleydita

Just remember, always, ALWAYS include an invoice when sending stuff across a customs border. Otherwise you risk having your stuff seized and the buyer will get their cash back from PayPal.

CCC

And always include your own return address too, so that if a buyer refuses a parcel or it gets lost then it is returned properly.

Bueller

A couple of google search terms bought me here after generating some hits on this thread. I've had some interesting experiences with this over the past few months. 

I don't mind people making a few quid, but they need to be transparent in their workings. I also agree with the notion that "Does it matter if you're getting the price you want?" to an extent. However.........

Dropshipping is against eBay policy and does compromise the various protection systems they have in place. Also bear in mind that eBay typically sides with the buyer when things do go wrong and this is a three way deal, because of the way dropshippers operate, which adds a layer of complication you don't need as a seller.

The third party who has bought the item from a different platform is clearly oblivious to this but also has no protection.

Overall, the potential for this process to be abused is very clear, not least the returns and refunds aspect.

Danger signs would include hidden feedback profiles, numerous additional conditions being applied to shipping during the transaction, including deletion of all eBay references and invoices, multiple names on addressess in the various eBay screens and general communications.

eBay's new payment system also appears to be being abused to hide behind. The transparency of PayPal used to make this more obvious.

All in all, it's a bit of a minefield, which appears to introduce an element of risk to sellers. It could do with eBay smartening things up a touch.

roxio

Bueller said:

A couple of google search terms bought me here after generating some hits on this thread. I've had some interesting experiences with this over the past few months. 

I don't mind people making a few quid, but they need to be transparent in their workings. I also agree with the notion that "Does it matter if you're getting the price you want?" to an extent. However.........

Dropshipping is against eBay policy and does compromise the various protection systems they have in place. Also bear in mind that eBay typically sides with the buyer when things do go wrong and this is a three way deal, because of the way dropshippers operate, which adds a layer of complication you don't need as a seller.

The third party who has bought the item from a different platform is clearly oblivious to this but also has no protection.

Overall, the potential for this process to be abused is very clear, not least the returns and refunds aspect.

Danger signs would include hidden feedback profiles, numerous additional conditions being applied to shipping during the transaction, including deletion of all eBay references and invoices, multiple names on addressess in the various eBay screens and general communications.

eBay's new payment system also appears to be being abused to hide behind. The transparency of PayPal used to make this more obvious.

All in all, it's a bit of a minefield, which appears to introduce an element of risk to sellers. It could do with eBay smartening things up a touch.

I have sold to dropshippers and not had any issues.

Its not against ebay uk policy.

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

Bueller

roxio said:

Bueller said:

A couple of google search terms bought me here after generating some hits on this thread. I've had some interesting experiences with this over the past few months. 

I don't mind people making a few quid, but they need to be transparent in their workings. I also agree with the notion that "Does it matter if you're getting the price you want?" to an extent. However.........

Dropshipping is against eBay policy and does compromise the various protection systems they have in place. Also bear in mind that eBay typically sides with the buyer when things do go wrong and this is a three way deal, because of the way dropshippers operate, which adds a layer of complication you don't need as a seller.

The third party who has bought the item from a different platform is clearly oblivious to this but also has no protection.

Overall, the potential for this process to be abused is very clear, not least the returns and refunds aspect.

Danger signs would include hidden feedback profiles, numerous additional conditions being applied to shipping during the transaction, including deletion of all eBay references and invoices, multiple names on addressess in the various eBay screens and general communications.

eBay's new payment system also appears to be being abused to hide behind. The transparency of PayPal used to make this more obvious.

All in all, it's a bit of a minefield, which appears to introduce an element of risk to sellers. It could do with eBay smartening things up a touch.

I have sold to dropshippers and not had any issues.

Its not against ebay uk policy.

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

From a wholesale supplier.....

I have spoken to eBay a few times on this matter recently and they have confirmed that what I've seen is definitely is against eBay policy.

CCC

Bueller said:

The third party who has bought the item from a different platform is clearly oblivious to this but also has no protection.

This is not true. The buyer has the same protection no matter who sends the item (or doesn't send the item).