[Method] Amazon to eBay Drop-shipping Done Right! Spoon Fed! *Long/Detailed*

[Avid Learner]

Seems you didn't read a large portion of the original post. I clearly state I don't automate anything. I also state why I am against using automation with this method.

Also, I remember hearing something about having to pay a state tax if you choose to collect tax from customers. I eat the tax on part of my items to keep myself from having to pay...I'd rather do that than to have to deal with any state tax situation.

Thanks for your reply, but, dude, I double/triple checked and you do say you eschew automating the listings and are very clear you mean automating the text of the posting itself. You did not say anything about how you made the comparisons between Amazon and eBay, nor if you used tools to help manage your custom made listings.

Now it is clear that you don't use tools for those either, thanks. In the past, I used Turbo Lister, and did write my custom listings. It helped to preview listings, loading listings in batches, and backing up listings. I agree, from experience, that a unique listing will stand out from the crowd of computer generated or copycat listings - that comes across as spammy.

And, yes, I see that specializing in a small group of consistent sellers makes the task of listing rather easy. Still, if someone wants to take this beyond 150 items and treat it like a full time endeavor (i.e. scale), some tools will help without compromising the success factors you cite.

As for eating taxes, the selling price of product you are offering must be low, so as not to cost you your whole $5 - $7 margin (California is 7.5% - before local add ons). Either that, or you are looking at a scaling margin that increases in value the higher the price point (though not necessarily a fixed percent), say $13 on a $100 priced item, $20 on $200, and so on.

Regarding negative feedback from buyers getting mad...I suspect that the lack of complaints is a combination of (relatively) low priced items and the implicit "impatience" of the buyer to get the item in 2 days (assuming Prime - yes, a big selling feature for many buyers). They want it now and it is not worth the hassle of complaining. I would guess that the higher the price point the more sensitive buyers are to Amazon shipped items for eBay listings. But, overall I agree, your responsiveness and attitude in responding to customer issues is key to at least avoiding negative feedback - that worked for me.

In your experience, are there any categories of goods that work better for this process (e.g. sports, games, household, tools)?

Overall, pretty solid looking recommendation. Thanks.

One other tip for IMers, if Amazon allows one to repeatedly register under the same name, address, ccard, then using a cash back or points card will add another 1%+ to the bottom line (about $196, per img in OP - every bit helps).

 

[Avid Learner]

Can anyone confirm if this can be done from Australia?

Assuming you mean sell items to Aussie eBay buyers for items sourced from Australia via Amazon (vs from USA), then it should still work in principle, but I don't know the specifics (e.g. TOS, shipping via Prime) of Amazon and eBay in Australia.

The one obvious issue is that the marketplace is "thinner", meaning, you will have fewer items that fit this model, and fewer buyers for them.

 

[mendes]

Hey, thanks for sharing, but I got quite confused here:

Nope. That is the best part. They do not ban your address, card or name. I have used the same one every single time. I think they don't like re-sellers but don't mind the income so they let people do it.

Can I register more than one account with the same data at the same time?
If no, how to I get rid of one account when the 30 days of prime are gone?

Thanks again.
Cheers!

 

[Avid Learner]

This thread inspired to go ahead and try to list my first item itended for drop shipping. Up until now I've always done auction style stuff selling antiques and collectables.

I still am barely putting my toes in the water though. I only listed one item just to see how it goes. In fact, it's the first item I've ever had to pay an insertion fee for.

What do you recommend for newbies just getting started? $0.30 fee for every item listed could get expensive. Especially when you're listing hundreds of items.. as with anything I imagine this takes a lot of trial and error, and slowly filtering out the stuff that doesn't sell and keep listing what does... but this could also get quite expensive for a newbie.

100 items listed for $30 is not much coin in the US. Suggest you land a sale or two before you scale, if $30 is a big hurdle. And, as the OP says, keep recycling your successful sellers.

This approach probably needs a good bit of trial and error by product type and price point. Thus, I suspect that finding 100 regular selling items so quickly will be a challenge. OP says he cycled through 3000 items to net his list of 150 regular sellers...that is a throughput of about 125 new items a month over two years, and netting 6 regular sellers each month - not accounting for learning curve and market ups and downs or seasonality.

 

[dustonly]

What about irs, i thought if you sell 200 items and over 20k you would receive a 1099 or some type of tax form from paypal.How do you avoid paying taxes.

 

[lewy2k]

What about irs, i thought if you sell 200 items and over 20k you would receive a 1099 or some type of tax form from paypal.How do you avoid paying taxes.

Lol. I use this money to help pay college tutuition. Evading taxes would be nearly impossible. So the answer is simple. I pay my taxes.

 

[lewy2k]

Thanks for your reply, but, dude, I double/triple checked and you do say you eschew automating the listings and are very clear you mean automating the text of the posting itself. You did not say anything about how you made the comparisons between Amazon and eBay, nor if you used tools to help manage your custom made listings.

Now it is clear that you don't use tools for those either, thanks. In the past, I used Turbo Lister, and did write my custom listings. It helped to preview listings, loading listings in batches, and backing up listings. I agree, from experience, that a unique listing will stand out from the crowd of computer generated or copycat listings - that comes across as spammy.

And, yes, I see that specializing in a small group of consistent sellers makes the task of listing rather easy. Still, if someone wants to take this beyond 150 items and treat it like a full time endeavor (i.e. scale), some tools will help without compromising the success factors you cite.

As for eating taxes, the selling price of product you are offering must be low, so as not to cost you your whole $5 - $7 margin (California is 7.5% - before local add ons). Either that, or you are looking at a scaling margin that increases in value the higher the price point (though not necessarily a fixed percent), say $13 on a $100 priced item, $20 on $200, and so on.

Regarding negative feedback from buyers getting mad...I suspect that the lack of complaints is a combination of (relatively) low priced items and the implicit "impatience" of the buyer to get the item in 2 days (assuming Prime - yes, a big selling feature for many buyers). They want it now and it is not worth the hassle of complaining. I would guess that the higher the price point the more sensitive buyers are to Amazon shipped items for eBay listings. But, overall I agree, your responsiveness and attitude in responding to customer issues is key to at least avoiding negative feedback - that worked for me.

In your experience, are there any categories of goods that work better for this process (e.g. sports, games, household, tools)?

Overall, pretty solid looking recommendation. Thanks.

One other tip for IMers, if Amazon allows one to repeatedly register under the same name, address, ccard, then using a cash back or points card will add another 1%+ to the bottom line (about $196, per img in OP - every bit helps).

Overall your assumptions are correct. Scaling could be aided by some automation, I've just reached the point where nearly everything I list will sell due to the knowledge I've gained during this time.

 

[raygendary]

Greetings OP Great Method!

Just Few Questions tho,

Can i do this in Asia? Buying from Amazon then shipping it to customer from ebay's address to US?

Do i need to have some investment to start or i can do this with zero balanced paypal?



Thanks OP!

 

[lewy2k]

Greetings OP Great Method!

Just Few Questions tho,

Can i do this in Asia? Buying from Amazon then shipping it to customer from ebay's address to US?

Do i need to have some investment to start or i can do this with zero balanced paypal?

Thanks OP!

Sorry, I have no knowledge if you can do this outside the US

You have one month before you must pay eBay fees, so you have 30 days to accumulate money for listing fees of $0.30 per item.

 

[raygendary]

Sorry, I have no knowledge if you can do this outside the US

You have one month before you must pay eBay fees, so you have 30 days to accumulate money for listing fees of $0.30 per item.

Thanks OP!

Also OP, if i were to use debit card to purchase from amazon, i think it will take like 3 days before i can purchase that item for my customer because, if i received the payment via paypal from ebay and then paypal will transfer the money to my debit card( which take like 3-4days) then i will then purchase the item then it will take 5-6 days to deliver the item right because of the shipping days.

 

[LuckyLight]

Hey guys , i have read this threat and thought i was a great idea . So i finally get started , listed my item(after having problems with my ebay account , not linking with my paypal accout) so in the end , the next day i list my item. And after an hour i got banned from ebay because i was a threat . Everytime i connect to ebay i used a vpn , but used my paypal with my real data(address , email) . Any thoughts?

 

[dav3416]

Hey guys , i have read this threat and thought i was a great idea . So i finally get started , listed my item(after having problems with my ebay account , not linking with my paypal accout) so in the end , the next day i list my item. And after an hour i got banned from ebay because i was a threat . Everytime i connect to ebay i used a vpn , but used my paypal with my real data(address , email) . Any thoughts?

VPN's on a new account are a bad thing. I use hotspot on older accounts but your account is probably still in the probationary period.

Best bet is to buy or start a stealth account and just change your ip address, tether, hotspot, cafe, etc, spoof your mac address if you want to be completely safe and then create a new user account on your computer. Never use the old one again.

 

[LuckyLight]

Thanks for the advice , but like the name says - NEWBIE- , its like you are talking alien to me . I was thinking of creating a new paypal account linked to my payoneer account in US , and create another Ebay account , i'm guessing that the problem occurred when i linked my paypal account in . Havina paypal account linked to a US account maybe won't have any problems . Anyone got any pointers on how to sell from outside of the US? Maybe get a paid US mobile phone number , you guys thought of that? On what rules are the ebay verification based on?

 

[LuckyLight]

Ok . so here is a piece of advice regarding my EU brothas' . Contact Ebay customers service , and announce that you are selling items that are stored in the US , but you currently living in your country . They will say it is possible , but you need a US address and number as registation address , and there you go , problem solve . Now , i've been banned from Ebay us . I am currently trying to get on Ebay Uk . Anyone care to tell me what should i avoid so UK Ebay won't ban me for being banned from US Ebay? Any help would be much appreciated , thanks

 

[uffda]

I wasn't successful with dropshipping though I do have an affiliate site that gets me into the 7.5-8.5% bracket every month.. Maybe we could split the difference if anyone wanted to buy through my links? PM me if anyone is interested.

 

[Christianconefery]

Do you do this on an eBay shop account OP or just a regular sellers account?

 

[David2k8]

No sorry I don't do anything different than you. The only thing that I do differently which is the only thing is I have the items shipped to my house so I can switch the box and have them shipped out to the ebay seller. That is why I go for the bigger ticket items that sell for more so I can make more profit and get back my shipping costs. But as for doing it differently no I do the same as you do this method has been around for years.

I used to go to a lot of outlet stores and buy brand name designer shoes and handbags at half off some of them up to 80% off the original tag and then I would sell them. Sometimes I still do. But that is just me. As for Amazon ever since I started shipping the items to myself first and swapping out the boxes no one complained anymore. I also like some of the other people stated have trouble with sales I have to keep relisting some of my items over and over again since I can't seem to sell some of them.

Just wondering when you have the item shipped to you prior to the buyer, doesnt shipping time become a problem? Also, ebay requires the tracking # to be posted within 24hrs for TRS, so are you getting around this some how?

 

[rbbadzz]

I do this as well. If you want to earn a bit of extra cash use cashback sites (ebates, fatwallet) and cards, although Amz only allows a few categories and they always change. Those funds take awhile to clear though, but once you get it going you always have some cash you can get back. Paypl has a business debit card that gives like 1% cashback. That's what I use since Amz doesn't take paypl. You could probably buy Amz or credit card giftcards with paypl though, never tried it.

 

[gatekept]

Thanks OP!

Also OP, if i were to use debit card to purchase from amazon, i think it will take like 3 days before i can purchase that item for my customer because, if i received the payment via paypal from ebay and then paypal will transfer the money to my debit card( which take like 3-4days) then i will then purchase the item then it will take 5-6 days to deliver the item right because of the shipping days.

I'd also like to see this question answered.

If you're listing high-ticket items or even items at $50+ a pop and sell multiple items in a day, withdrawing hundreds of dollars from your bank account to pay for the items might not be possible for some people, here.

Since Amazon does not accept PayPal, do you have any ways to get around this OP? Credit/debit will be too slow after the 3-day transfer from PayPal to bank account, and then 2 days for Amazon shipping. Plus even longer if it's over a weekend.

 

[Avid Learner]

I do this as well. If you want to earn a bit of extra cash use cashback sites (ebates, fatwallet) and cards, although Amz only allows a few categories and they always change. Those funds take awhile to clear though, but once you get it going you always have some cash you can get back. Paypl has a business debit card that gives like 1% cashback. That's what I use since Amz doesn't take paypl. You could probably buy Amz or credit card giftcards with paypl though, never tried it.

Yes...Amazon cashback is rather limited, but if one is pushing clothing/shoes, that is a very good percentage. Good suggestion.

Also, any card the provides cash back (or points that can be used for products/service or traded for giftcards) would be good, but using them to purchase Amazon (or Kindle) giftcards is a good way to add another 1-2% discount (or more if you take the risk and buy cards from eBay). Good tip.