eBay Dropshipping.. A Complete Guide 2023

Is dropshipping through eBay something you’re interested in? Dropshipping on eBay is easy with our step-by-step guide.

eBay dropshipping requires less financial investment than a traditional business, making it a good option for new online retailers.What’s eBay dropshipping? eBay dropshipping pros and cons Worth it? Below is our dropshipping on eBay guide to help you decide if it’s suited for your online business.

eBay Dropshipping

What is a Dropshipping business?

Dropshipping is a way of filling orders where a company doesn’t have to keep its products in stock.

When a consumer buys anything, the sales order is sent to a third-party supplier, who produces and ships the products. So, the seller never touches or owns the merchandise.

Dropshippers must buy items from a wholesaler or manufacturer only when needed to meet customer orders.

How to Dropship on eBay

Dropshipping on eBay has become increasingly difficult in recent years.

This doesn’t mean that it can’t happen, but it does mean that sellers have to be very careful not to break eBay’s dropshipping policy if they don’t want to get in trouble.

So, here’s how the procedure works…

1. Set up an eBay Seller account

All you need to start dropshipping is an eBay Seller account. You could make more money if you opened an eBay store, but you don’t have to. But be ready to pay for listing costs.

Keep in mind that there are different eBay sites for different countries around the world, so make sure you sign up for the one where your target audience lives.

2. Choose your products and dropshipping supplier

First, do some research and pick what you want to sell on eBay.

Then, with the suppliers of your chosen products, you’ll need to set up a retailer account. Contact them and inquire if they will dropship to your clients.

It’s also crucial to make sure the supplier is prepared to affix a personalised return label (with your company name and address) to the shipment so your consumers know who supplied it.

3. List your items on eBay at a marked-up price

You really need to take your time with this. You can upload professional photos of the products from the supplier’s website or your own if you have samples. For the best search visibility, give detailed descriptions of your products and optimise your listings.

Keep in mind that you’ll probably be competing with other vendors who use the same source. You’ll need to find ways to set yourself apart and stand out from the crowd.

It’s also important to choose the right price point. It must be low enough to compete with other listings, but high enough to make money.

3. Pass on your customers’ details when you make a sale

When you make a sale, call your supplier and give them the shipping information for your customer.

Even if your supplier packs and sends the item directly to the buyer, eBay holds you responsible for making sure the item gets to the buyer safely and within the time range you set in your listing.

If you can’t find a wholesale source that will dropship to your eBay customers, you could buy in bulk from the supplier and send the goods to a fulfilment service.

Then, that company would keep track of your stock, package and ship items for you.

If you buy shipment management software, you can automate this process and find the best shipping courier rates at the same time.

The biggest downside is that you’d have to buy a lot of goods at once, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll all sell. This makes the business risk much higher than with regular dropshipping.

eBay dropshipping policies and requirements

Before you can dropship on eBay, you need to know what you can and can’t do.

Under eBay’s dropshipping policy, you can’t buy items from another store or market that ship directly to your client.

What does this really mean?

It means you can’t dropship from Amazon or AliExpress, and if you do, eBay may reduce, hide, or remove your listings altogether.

But there’s more.

If you don’t follow eBay’s rules, you could get a lower seller rating, be limited in what you can buy or sell, lose buyer or seller protections, or even have your account closed.

Before the ban, eBay sellers could dropship products from almost anywhere, which made customers angry and hurt the eBay brand in the long run.

You might read in an eBay thread about how people felt tricked when they bought something on eBay and then got a package from Amazon with a receipt for less than they paid.

Because of this, eBay made a policy against dropshipping that made it illegal for merchants to keep doing it.

Because of this, the only way to dropship on eBay is to get orders directly from a wholesaler.

You must also pay listing fees for all of your products, even if they don’t sell, and guarantee delivery within 30 days.

Advantages of dropshipping on eBay

As long as you follow the rules, eBay dropshipping is a great way to do business, especially for new sellers and new businesses, because the barriers to entry are so low.

Here are the advantages:

No money needed up front

The fact that you don’t have to buy big volumes of merchandise beforehand is maybe the most significant advantage of eBay dropshipping (just as long as you can find a wholesaler who is happy to dropship to your eBay customers)

It is easy to get started


Furthermore, because there is no need to invest in inventory, it is quite simple to get started with absolutely no money at all. Simply create an eBay Seller account and select a wholesaler to dropship on your behalf.

Make the most of eBay’s audience.


Because eBay is the world’s largest and most well-known online auction platform, it already has a vast and dedicated consumer base.

By launching your dropshipping business on eBay, you’ll receive access to a large audience with no effort on your part.

Reduce your marketing budget


Dropshipping on eBay allows you to capitalise on a ready-made consumer base while also avoiding the need to spend money on promotion; millions of internet shoppers will view your listings anyhow.

Dropshipping can be changed


A lot of sellers want to start an online business as a side job to make a little extra money and see how things go.

Dropshipping on eBay is something that anyone can do from anywhere in the world as long as they have access to the internet, and it can be done on your own time.

With little risk, grow


If you have good relationships with your suppliers, it’s easier to grow a dropshipping business on eBay than a traditional online store.

Why? Because you give them the job when you sell more, you can grow your business without the risks and costs that come with traditional growth, such as office space, overhead costs, additional staff salaries, warehouse rent, and so on.

Disadvantages of dropshipping on eBay

On the surface, dropshipping on eBay seems like a no-brainer, but there are a lot of problems to think about before getting started, especially now that eBay has a strict dropshipping policy.

Here are some of the problems:

It’s hard to find a dropshipping supplier


The biggest problem with dropshipping on eBay may be how hard it is to set up wholesale partnerships with suppliers, since very few will offer dropshipping services unless you can show you can move stuff.

Stock must often be bought in large quantities


Because building dropship relationships with wholesalers can take time, you may need to buy wholesale goods in advance to show them your sales record.

Of course, this defeats the purpose of dropshipping, and you risk spending money on items that might not sell.

eBay limitations


There is only one legal way to dropship on eBay, and that is to find a wholesaler who is willing to handle your dropshipping operation.

eBay also has rules about how merchants should interact with their customers and how they should present their business. If you don’t follow these rules, your eBay business could face serious penalties.

You are to blame when things go wrong

eBay says that you are the only one who is responsible for making sure the item gets to the buyer safely and in the time frame you set in your ad.

But you need the supplier to dropship for you, and the supplier is not required to deliver within this time frame. This means that they could run out of stock and wait a month for more to arrive and nothing would happen.

However the negative comments on your listings would make it likely that your account would be closed, and your sales would drop by a lot.

Also, the eBay seller is the only one who is responsible for giving money back to buyers.

Your customers do not belong to you


Dropshipping on eBay means you don’t own your customers. Instead, every sale you make helps eBay grow their brand.

If a friend asks you where you got something, you might say “eBay” instead of the name of the eBay seller.

Not only that, but you can’t make an email list to send remarketing emails to. It’s just not possible.

Lots of people are trying to win


Because there aren’t many barriers to entry for dropshipping on eBay, many online sellers like you are attracted to it as a business model. This means that there’s a lot of competition.

Since many stores will be selling the same things as you, you’ll have to find other ways to stand out, which can take a lot of time.

Small profit margins.


With so much competition, you might have to keep lowering your prices to stay a good option for customers.

Also, after the first 50 free listings, eBay will charge you to list more items, and the company will take up to 10 percent of your final sale price, which will cut into your profits.

So, if you want to make money dropshipping on eBay, you need to make a lot of sales every month.

Is eBay dropshipping profitable?

How you answer this question depends on what you want to do with eBay dropshipping.

If you just want to make a little extra money on the side, dropshipping on eBay could be a great option because you don’t have to pay anything up front and there’s not much risk.

But eBay dropshipping is not for you if you want to build a long-term, memorable brand with good profit margins and be in complete control of how your online business grows.

Instead, we suggest that you focus on finding a platform that gives you a lot more freedom to change things.

We hope this tutorial has cleared up any questions you had about eBay dropshipping and helped you decide if it’s worth it for your business goals.

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