Selling Limit and Dropshipping

Ok, so as you know I have had a crazy past 15 days of sales due to the virus situation.
In just 15 days, I reached my absolute selling limit of $19,000 (meaning I have sold $19,000 total). I'm not allowed to sell more and there's still 5 days or so left this month boohoo, so I'm sad I'm going to miss out on big sales for the last few days of the month.

I've emailed ebay a couple times about requesting to increase my selling limit and they told me both time they'd love to help but I have to answer about 10 questions including things like, what I sell, where I get it from, etc.

My question is if you reveal to them you are a dropshipper and have to tell them where you are dropshipping your products from, could that potentially put me at any risk? For example, what if I told them that I buy products off Amazon or Aliexpress, then list them on ebay and mark up the prices and ship them to my ebay customers? Would they be like, "that's awesome, you're a great seller! We'll increase your selling limit now!" or would they be suspicious and possibly flag my account or even lose my selling privileges?

To be honest, I'm just afraid to follow through with all the questions they asked me to answer to get my selling limit increased. I don't want to risk jeopardizing my account or selling privileges. I'm also not based in the US so I don't know how much that might affect their decision?

Maybe I should just count my blessings and stay put, or risk myself by trying to increase selling limits for more profit? The age old question.

Lastly, for the next 5 days or so, where else could I sell my products? Since I can't make any more sales on ebay, I don't want to just sit around for 5 days and wait for April to roll around so I can start selling again. I would like to try something proactive and maybe this is a chance for me to discover or learn something new....another way to sell online. I don't have my own website and I think that's beyond my skill level (to set it up) or at least time consuming to learn how and get it going.

I know that I could just try posting all over facebook or online classifieds etc., but without any reputation or trust, might be hard to make sales there.

I need some advice on how to expand my sales.

im a newbie on ebay seller center. Can you tell me how to have 19.000$ sold im in quarantin self, no job, no money, please help.

So you're doing dropship op ? Where you get your product from,

You can start selling in your local country marketplace

Robyries said:

So you're doing dropship op ? Where you get your product from,

You can start selling in your local country marketplace

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I dropship from a couple stores/merchants in the US to mostly US customers and some international (right now it's about 75/25). The reason is because due to the virus scare, everyone is panic buying and it's actually helping my "niche". I can't really sell it in my local market or country because there's no panic buying here.

I've been doing a lot of reading and viewing on youtube and sites, to find out information about requesting higher selling limits as a dropshipper and I get good and bad reactions. Some say that it's not a problem and that ebay allows dropshipping and people have had selling limits increased 10X on multiple accounts as a dropshipper. But then others say that ebay doesn't like dropshippers and may dig deeper into your account to find out what you are doing or selling etc.

The thing that concerns me is that I am not based in the US, so when they ask me for tax information as one of the questions to answer in the email, I don't know what to tell them. I don't know how much taxes I'm supposed to even pay for these sales. Ebay is charging the buyers sales tax and collecting it as part of my sales, so it seems like I'm getting more money than I should, but when I purchase the items at my merchant site to dropship them, I am paying them the sales tax, so it sort of balances it out, but I'm not sure how the governments (IRS in the US?) or my own local government can see this or know this? Maybe I'm supposed to report all the sales tax I have paid? It's all on my US credit card so I'm hoping that info goes directly to my credit card data. My Paypal is based in Canada but I don't live there anymore either (well for the last decade). So I have no idea what's going to happen if I'm supposed to be owing some taxes to someone...all I know is that I am paying sales tax on my credit card whenever I make the purchases at the US merchant site.

there are places where you can buy seller accounts with higher limits

Try doing some JV with high limit requirement,

If you willing to buy another ebay account that could be risky, as above me suggest this

This is why i always recommend to have multiple accounts running.
IF you have multiple accounts, then you will not be stuck like this.

Also, drop shipping per se is allowed on eBay, but there are certain policies that need to follow on there.
One big question is that - do you have physical inventories on the items you sell?
If you have no physical items on hand, then you must be doing retail arbitrage? If yes, then you are violating eBay's terms with regards to drop shipping, hence you'll get warned or worse, suspended.

I advise not to request for the selling limit increase. eBay sometimes automatically increase your selling limit based on your selling performance, I suggest just wait on that.
What are you going to do now? Get more eBay stealth accounts.

umpteen said:

This is why i always recommend to have multiple accounts running.
IF you have multiple accounts, then you will not be stuck like this.

Also, drop shipping per se is allowed on eBay, but there are certain policies that need to follow on there.
One big question is that - do you have physical inventories on the items you sell?
If you have no physical items on hand, then you must be doing retail arbitrage? If yes, then you are violating eBay's terms with regards to drop shipping, hence you'll get warned or worse, suspended.

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Can you clarify on this? So dropshipping is allowed on ebay, but you need to have "physical inventories on the items you sell"?
What does this mean? Do you mean does my dropshipper have physical inventories or do I have them physically in my possession?
Isn't dropshipping definition NOT having any physical inventories but another supplier/distributor shipping it out for you, hence the term dropshipping? I'm confused. I've heard this before but wasn't sure exactly what it meant. Please clarify, thanks!

umpteen said:

I advise not to request for the selling limit increase. eBay sometimes automatically increase your selling limit based on your selling performance, I suggest just wait on that.
What are you going to do now? Get more eBay stealth accounts.

Click to expand...

Yes, my fearful side thinks you are right. I better not risk it and just count my blessings and be grateful that I can even sell 19K in one month. This obviously won't last once the covid19 scare dies down. So yeah, better to just stay status quo right? Why fix something if it ain't broke hehe.

The thing I'm afraid about multiple accounts or stealth accounts is that they may get linked with my main account and anything that goes wrong will bring my main account down with it. Am I allowed to just apply or open a legit 2nd account on ebay with all the same banking/paypal info and just sell the same products on there, too? Or wouldn't ebay say you can't sell on multiple accounts the same products? Kinda like how ebay doesn't allow you to list identical items. It tells you there is a duplicate listing and it is not allowed. I'd have to alter it somehow slightly so that I can list the same product up twice....like bundle package vs single etc. That works fine.

Please take time reading their policies, more info here: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/drop-shipping?id=4176

oatmeal said:

Yes, my fearful side thinks you are right. I better not risk it and just count my blessings and be grateful that I can even sell 19K in one month. This obviously won't last once the covid19 scare dies down. So yeah, better to just stay status quo right? Why fix something if it ain't broke hehe.

The thing I'm afraid about multiple accounts or stealth accounts is that they may get linked with my main account and anything that goes wrong will bring my main account down with it. Am I allowed to just apply or open a legit 2nd account on ebay with all the same banking/paypal info and just sell the same products on there, too? Or wouldn't ebay say you can't sell on multiple accounts the same products? Kinda like how ebay doesn't allow you to list identical items. It tells you there is a duplicate listing and it is not allowed. I'd have to alter it somehow slightly so that I can list the same product up twice....like bundle package vs single etc. That works fine.

Click to expand...

Yes, you are allowed to have multiple accounts on eBay under the same details (Name, Address, etc)
But i do not recommend that. Why? When one got suspended, so with the others.

There are a lot of ways on how to safely operate stealth accounts without getting them linked to your other seller accounts.
I'm not so sure, if there's a guide on that here.

Look at this: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/drop-shipping?id=4176

Drop shipping, also known as product sourcing, is when you buy stock from a supplier and work with them to send items directly to your buyers without ever handling them yourself.

Drop shipping, where you fulfill orders directly from a wholesale supplier, is allowed on eBay. Remember that if you use drop shipping, you’re still responsible for the safe delivery of the item within the time frame stated in your listing and for the buyer’s overall satisfaction with their purchase.

However, listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your customer is not allowed on eBay. Activity that doesn’t follow eBay policy could result in a range of actions including but not limited to: administratively ending or canceling listings, hiding or demoting all listings from search results, lowering seller rating, buying or selling restrictions, loss of buyer or seller protections, and account suspension. All fees paid or payable in relation to listings or accounts on which we take any action will not be refunded or otherwise credited to your account.

umpteen said:

Look at this: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/drop-shipping?id=4176

Drop shipping, also known as product sourcing, is when you buy stock from a supplier and work with them to send items directly to your buyers without ever handling them yourself.

Drop shipping, where you fulfill orders directly from a wholesale supplier, is allowed on eBay. Remember that if you use drop shipping, you’re still responsible for the safe delivery of the item within the time frame stated in your listing and for the buyer’s overall satisfaction with their purchase.

However, listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your customer is not allowed on eBay. Activity that doesn’t follow eBay policy could result in a range of actions including but not limited to: administratively ending or canceling listings, hiding or demoting all listings from search results, lowering seller rating, buying or selling restrictions, loss of buyer or seller protections, and account suspension. All fees paid or payable in relation to listings or accounts on which we take any action will not be refunded or otherwise credited to your account.

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Well I'm definitely the second part. Good thing I asked before responding to the email.
I'm not working with a supplier or wholesaler. I'm purchasing the products off other sites that I found or know where to get it cheaper and have them ship it out to my buyers address. It's such a beautiful system as I've gotten quite good at it and know how to take care of my customers if anything goes wrong. Been doing it since 2011. I feel more like a "broker" or middle man. Yes, my customers on ebay pay more than they could if they knew where to shop. But it's like anything else, you pay a premium for knowledge and resources you don't have and someone else does. I'm in the same shoe as a buyer when I buy something from anyone else....I'm over paying because that merchant or seller knows where to get it cheaper and can provide it for me (but of course they don't tell me they are getting it for much cheaper and profiting off me).

haha, actually, that's how I got started. That was my original idea. Instead of dropshipping, I wanted to tell people where they can buy "x" product for cheaper. All they had to do was pay for my "inside scoop" for 99 cents on ebay. I sold quite a lot of those in the beginning but that's how I got in trouble because I wasn't actually selling anything physical, but just information. So that account was banned from selling and had to start a new one...fortunately at that time I had a much older ebay account that I never used for selling before and that's where I started to dropship or should I say "retail arbitrage".

I really wanted to just sell information but I guess I have to do it myself.


Oh, also, I found a place where I can actually function more like a real dropshipper. I am able to buy the products and have it shipped to my storage service and from there, I can ship out the products to my buyers...so in that case, yes, I do have physical inventory (just started doing that this past month after searching for years on how to do it). It's sort of like a fulfillment service. Just what I needed, but their shipping rates are pretty high.

Oh, I also need to add this. I've noticed that there are a few people on ebay who buy from me and use me as a dropshipper! LMAO
I noticed this because the same ebayer would make multiple purchases from me but each shipping addrress was different with different names and sometimes they'd even give me special requests like not to include an invoice slip etc LOL.

Wow...imagine that....I can't imagine how much more they had to mark up the price to make any profit from my already marked up prices from my retail store which they themselves order from the wholesaler or manufacturer. We are potentially looking at 3 middle men between the manufacturer and the actual customer and each middle man getting a slice or percentage of the pie. DANG. Funny how business works eh? It's like the drug trade industry....each skimming off the top, diluting the product, until it gets into the hands of the druggie.

All the best mate! Just hit me up if you need help with anything

Selling limits can definitely be increased and nearly doubled once every 30 days.

Jiger said:

im a newbie on ebay seller center. Can you tell me how to have 19.000$ sold im in quarantin self, no job, no money, please help.

Click to expand...

Your last option is.....PRAY that the SKY suddenly will drop some money
No job, at least go out and find a job. Full/Part time/Temporary job. Rather than waiting for your government to help you citizens.

ReputationPreservation said:

Selling limits can definitely be increased and nearly doubled once every 30 days.

Click to expand...

Vote..

You don't have to ask to increase your selling limit.
Once you're max out, they will increase the limit next month.
Positive feedback from your buyer also helping speed things up.

*add feedback