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Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Someone on eBay was using a photo I took for an exclusive item on Amazon to sell on eBay. I looked at their inventory and everything appears to be exact rips from Amazon listings with a 5-8% markup.

I searched on Google and found a couple of references to this kind of operation. The margins are very thin but there is zero inventory and very high volume. I used Goofbid.com on a couple of sellers and they sold $100k per month.

Thoughts?

I could hire hire a teenage relative to manually process the Amazon purchases as gifts using a regular Amazon acct (NOT an PRIME acct due to the TOS). Just have to make sure the items are above $35 so they qualify as a Shipping Savings. eBay wouldn't really care as long as I keep the feedback decent and if Amazon blocks me then I can very easily open a new Amazon Buyer acct - no SS# or VBA needed. I could create an eBay store with 100s of listings very quickly since Amazon already has all of the details and photos.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Rough to hit these high figures on a NEW account for a single month - would have to spread among many accounts

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Sounds like a ton of work for small profits but no doubt something worth trying.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

I agree. It would need to be built up slowly or run on an older account with higher limits.

The profits are decent given that the main workload is just copy paste an eBay order into an Amazon purchase. Nothing to pick, wrap, pack or ship. No cost for storage, you can operate while on the road, and it could scale up quickly since it's easy enough to just take any amazon listing and relist on eBay with a marginal profit. So it takes 2 min to make the order; that's 30 orders per hour and say your avg profit margin per sale, after fees, gets you only $5, then that's $150/hr. Of course there is still the time spent handling customers and general admin stuff.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

It sounds like it is worth a try, but as you said, Amazon won't let you use the Prime program to get free shipping on this stuff. Also, be careful - while you CAN rely on Amazon to ship quickly, marketplace sellers are another matter entirely.

You would also have to check stock levels frequently. If Amazon runs out and you have orders placed with you on eBay, you could get some negatives by cancelling the orders. If you have enough cancellations, it could cause a problem with your eBay account.

Also, some buyers are going to feel cheated when they see the box coming from Amazon and look up the price.

If eBay catches on, I'm not sure what their reaction would be. I mean you ARE selling legal products and delivering, so there is no fraud involved. But they MAY have a problem with their customers receiving items from Amazon.

I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm just pointing out some potential pitfalls.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Thoughts ???

This business model is tried & tested & originates from a guy that sold this concept on one of his specialist eBay courses. I have membership access to the site in question.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

From a business perspective I think it is possible. As stated above, it would require higher volume to make a sizeable profit but that shouldn't be a problem given that you price everything at a sufficient markup. In essence, since you can calculate ebay/paypal fees and the required cost to purchase the product on amazon, you already know how much you make on every sale so it just comes down to a listing game. The more listings you have, the more chance you have of a making a sale which is guaranteed profit.

In the event of returns, you can always have them send it back to Amazon and submit a return request for the same reason they returned it to you. In addition, no inventory holding costs make this even better. You can stop at any time and have no need to liquidate inventory.

I've done this with prime accounts during the holiday season and have always had success. I try to find products that have higher margins between the two sites so it is more worth my while but really any sale is guaranteed money.

My conclusion is go for it. Out of all the ideas and concepts that people have on the forums it definitely is not as risky as some and could work out well for you. Especially with the holiday season coming up fast, there is no better time than now.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Very interesting post.... I have Amazon Prime, could I send as `gifts` to other addresses using my Prime account.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

When Amazon catches on, they will close the account - even if it is just a buyer account.

It is well-known that Amazon has razor-thin margins on their Prime shipping items. They keep the program going, because it increases their sales. But they specifically do NOT want anyone re-selling their products using the free 2 day shipping. It is in their terms and conditions.

So, YES, you could do this on a small scale, but if you start shipping dozens, or hundreds, of items to different addresses it can cause an issue.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Its dropshippig plan and simple and AZ/eBay dont like drop shippers much any more.

I personally wouldn't use this tactic, basically all your doing is using Amazon as a supplier like any other supplier, wholesaler, or importer you may have. You still have to research the products and prices available compare it with the added fees on eBay/PP and list the item as you would normally.

If I'm going to do this I might as well do it with the suppliers I already use but get them at the wholesale price not what another seller prices at retail on Amazon even if it still works out a marginal profit. Its still making them money and your just another middleman in the chain collecting pennies!

Id rather cut out the middleman as much as possible, source the product and advertise it directly and collect all the yummy profit myself.

The only advantage this could offer is the non holding of stock as the "supplier" ships directly to customer but then its also the biggest flaw in using Amazon, people know it comes from Amazon due to the AZ boxes or the paperwork a seller will include with the package and there no guarantee they wont include something it even if you tell them not too. They are in control not you and your customer could become their long term repeat customer!

Sorry not convinced of this at all. I can only see more negatives for using this practice as oppose positives but that's just my two cents worth.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Lots of work, lots of hassles and very low profit margins.

Better to buy your own items and re sell.

Only the mega power sellers with high feedbacks and employees can turn it over enough to make any decent money.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Yes, agreed. Better to source wholesale. It might work for a few niche items though, a couple of quid is, a couple of quid and will pay for a few tins of beans.

And it was drop shipping that got me suspended from paypal and ebay. Like, Tesco direct don`t do drop shipping my ass. And they`re on ebay!!!

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

So many doing this now they are having price wars and leaving little profits.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Rough to hear that they found you out.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Many are doing this vice versa. I get same buyers all time shipping to amazon customers. Please no invoice. Thousands of times. People with 20-30 ebay buyer accounts. The margin is better buying from ebay and selling amazon. I use amazon in a pinch when something is DOA and want to replace fast and cheap overnight. Always excellent feedback .

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

So when opening a "stealth" Amazon buyer account, SS# and VBA is unnecessary. Am I correct in assuming that the other precautions mentioned in aspkin's guide are unnecessary for just a buyer account?

For example, spoofing MAC addresses, using a virtual machine, etc.

Thank you!

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Been doing this for about 5 years, rather than sell tonnes of stuff I concentrate on niche products, otherwise too much admin for too little money.

Those saying it's not a good business model are wrong, done correctly it's great, I make a good living out of it thanks.

Retail arbitrage, nothing new in the world.

Ebay and Amazon are the biggest dropshippers of them all

It's perfect for my lifestyle, I work remotely and don't have to bother with having storage facilities and hiring extra staff.

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

1. Some picky buyer will neg you event they got their stuff on time and everything is good because item was ship from Amazon. Or they are talking about drop ship in eBay communication message.

2. They will go to Amazon and check for price and get more angry when see the price different, some time demand a refund.

3. Better is get Prime account and ship to yourself and you ship out 2 day later. Cost more but safe.

4. There is an FireFox plugin that can compare the price of any item between Amazon and eBay side-by-side. I have it install at work

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Tony please send the link for that buddy

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

The plug-in? I will tomorrow

Re: Drop Ship Amazon items to eBay
 

Tony, please send the link for that.