Hey everyone,
I run a software platform that serves around 300 users who mainly dropship from Amazon to eBay. Traditionally, we've managed to handle MC011 restrictions where eBay demands "proof of delivery, supplier invoices, etc." by providing such evidence, restrictions were typically lifted after a few days.
But recently, even sellers with perfect metrics (example:
https://gyazo.com/21e4b60bb7596cfda51ccebdf5aa43a8) have started facing the MC011 restriction. eBay now seems to require the seller's name and User ID on every document (
https://gyazo.com/396f6bafe4358df8591eed10f2ae6ff8). After reaching out to eBay for clarification, the initial response indicated that the User ID didn't need to be on the document. However, eBay later sent this (
https://gyazo.com/f162483b2c450553083dcb1d02dfd4e8), reasserting the requirement and asking for additional business information.
Despite our members submitting ALL documents, including 200 legitimate invoices (dated a year ago with the username included, titles matched to eBay listings, and accurate shipping and billing addresses), account was still permanently banned.
The thing that gets me is that we've got users making over $3k profit per month for more than a year without ever getting an MC011. This leads me to suspect that the issue might be tied to account age or growth rate within the first 3-6 months.
Now, I understand that MC011 happens, that's not the issue. The issue's that it seems like they're randomly restricting accounts, even those with perfect metrics and not lifting restrictions and instead perm banning which they weren't doing before unless they had probable cause (bunch of cancels, cases, etc.)
We've established guidelines for our members to minimize the risk of bans:
- Keep order cancellations low.
- Resolve cases promptly.
- Upload tracking details for ALL orders.
- If cancellations are frequent, distribute them between refunds and customer communication AND selecting "Address Issue" as the reason (doesn't negatively impact metrics when selecting this option; or maybe it does?)to minimize metric impact.
- Limit growth rate to no more than 30% per month (though this one is hard to get everyone to follow).
Moreover, our software helps streamline this process (NOT PLUGGING) by:
*Automatically uploading tracking data from Amazon directly to eBay.
*Alerting users if their cancellation rates begin to pose a risk.
So, to fight this new "unappealable restriction," I'm considering implementing the following:
- Enforcing a growth structure that limits rapid expansion, e.g., capping monthly profit to $500 for the first 6 months before permitting larger scale operations.
- Encouraging new members to set up a business account instead of a personal one during onboarding. This way, rapid growth might not seem as suspicious to eBay.
- Integrating an invoice generator to create an invoice for EVERY product a user lists to ensure thorough documentation.
I would appreciate any insight, feedback on my proposed solutions, what I'm doing wrong, and any additional ideas or experiences you might have. I'm eager to learn from this knowledgeable community.
I've seen a lot of hope—and a fair amount of despair—on this forum, but I know this can work long-term. I've been doing this for 5 years now and helped over 6k members. I know we can create a thriving, sustainable system. What we need is a robust and efficient structure to navigate these challenges.
software owner here; MC011 issues dropshipping, need insight 
