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What is eBay Dropshipping?

Let's cover dropshipping first. Dropshipping is when you sell an item that you don't personally stock. Instead, the items are usually held at a third party warehouse until a purchase is made. This kind of dropshipping takes many forms, and may require a wholesale agreement to establish suppliers.

eBay dropshipping can take that form, but can be an interesting twist on online arbitrage. In this case, sellers list products they don't own or have in stock, the purchase them when the item sells and have it delivered directly to the buyer.

A prominent example in recent years is Amazon-to-eBay dropshipping, where the same practice can be applied when using any other online retailer as the supplier, as long as there's a demand for the product at a higher price on the eBay marketplace.

For sellers, it's a way to list and sell products without having to buy or hold any inventory. If you pull it off, it's a swift way to make money from absolutely nothing.

 

Why Wouldn't They Just Buy from the Cheaper Site?

People do not price check enough. eBay dropshipping highlights the need to compare prices on all online purchases, as that's the main reason this is so effective. This makes it easy for these dropshippers to list items at a profit.

The earlier example of Amazon-to-eBay flips was particularly notable, because the listers were selling Amazon-fulfilled products. This meant rapid delivery in fully Amazon-branded boxes. If you bought something from eBay and got it delivered in a non-reused Amazon box, you'd be confused too.

There are thousands of ecommerce sites in the UK and abroad. Although it's more likely you will spot a dropshipped product from a site you know, you wouldn't necessarily tell if it was from a lesser known one, or from China (using a supplier from AliExpress).

Dropshippers rely on the customer's ignorance of the alternatives and some of them have been able to make 7-figure annual incomes from it.

 

What are the Main Problems with eBay Dropshipping?

Returns

By far, the single most annoying factor. You will have to take on the returns yourself, rather than it going back to the supplier store. Effort if you prefer to send out oversized products.

Competition

There's a lot of it, and even when there isn't much, they probably have more resources than you to alter listings and outrank yours. There's competition everywhere though.

Risk of being found out

Customers get annoyed if they think they've been hard done by. Overpaying for an item they can easily buy elsewhere is at the top of the list. All it takes is an invoice included in the packaging to rumble the operation. While it's certainly allowed, you may receive negative feedback from it.

Is Dropshipping Allowed on eBay?

eBay absolutely allow dropshipping. The sheer quantity of Chinese listings on the UK marketplace should already tell you this. As long as dropshippers abide by all the rules of other eBay business sellers, they are free to do as they wish.

This means that they should declare themselves as a business seller, operate a suitable returns policy and list products as described with adequate imagery.

 

What's My Experience with eBay Dropshipping?

As someone who has sold on eBay for years, I wasn't keen on eBay dropshipping at first. As a reseller, I completely got over the ethical side. I just wasn't sure whether I could risk my eBay account. As much as I knew it was perfectly fine to do, the variables about what could happen stopped me taking part for a while. It wasn't until I realised how often my new eBay listings compete with obvious dropshippers (who can afford to have far smaller margins) that I had to try it out myself.

eBay dropshipping is the ideal way to get your cash up. I'd say existing eBay sellers are best equipped to give his a go, as you will be more familiar with your limitations as a seller. You won't unnecessarily put your account at risk.

It's a completely mindset shift from other forms of reselling. Although I definitely still buy products and stock them to resell (as the product margins tend to be greater) the inventory-free aspect makes this a lot less time intensive.

There's clearly a lot more to it than just listing. You need to do plenty of product and keyword research to make this work. You also need to do this in a high volume to earn worth while profit. However, once you crack the formula, you'll be glad to have made the transition.

I can see how this can scale, but I only take part every now and again.

 

Summary

Inventory-free way to earn money from eBay. All it requires is a little keyword research to make your first sale.

Chiino
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