Drop Shippers, What Do You Think?

[Super]

The new breed of Drop Shippers, Whats your take?

I have dealt with many Drop Shippers in my years of Online Shopping and it seems like there are tons of new ones since the start of Amazons Prime Service especially on Ebay. I have always felt somehow wrong in leaving Feedback for these Sellers.

My latest purchase and my motivation to get your views and ideas in this Thread. Not really Train related directly but indirectly I wanted to purchase Avery's Removable Stickers (#6464) to Label the Storage Containers I am using for all the Layout items so I may find them easily when the rebuild starts. Everywhere I looked in the Online Stores and Office Supply Stores they were on the high side except for Shipped by Amazon which was about a third of the price and Free Shipping with Prime. I am not a Prime Member so with the shipping it about doubled the cost. Enter Ebay...I was able to find a Seller that offered it a bit cheaper than the Amazon with Free Shipping so I opted for that. The item arrived 2 days later in an Amazon box and a Amazon Gift Receipt. I had no idea this Seller was a Drop Shipper so here are my questions about Drop Shippers for you.


I feel weird about leaving positive Feedback for a Seller that really doesn't do anything but get a Prime Account and just types in Gift Orders on their computer. They don't have to have supplies or the stock on hand, they don't have to make trips to the Post Office, they don't have any responsibility to the Buyer, they don't have to have any overhead expenses at all except for paying their Prime Fee every year. Although I am extremely happy about the speed and cost of the product, shouldn't the positive Feedback really go to Amazon as the Seller really didn't do anything except type? Now I am not knocking them for creating a business on the back of another but I wonder how Amazon feels about this or do all they care about is another sale from whoever?

How do you feel or is it a case of who cares as long as I get the price I want?

Do you think a Seller should state in their listing they are Drop Shipping from Amazon as this is becoming quite common?

Do you think the Seller deserves the Favorable Feedback for just typing for a few minutes?

There is also no responsibility of the Drop Shipper for Returns or making the Buyer satisfied as they just pass that on to Amazon...is this fair?

Or is this a case of just shut up Super, why should you care? Just get a Prime Account and start listing Amazon items yourself on Ebay and make lots of money. After all, if it doesn't bother Amazon, why should it bother you?

An interesting subject and one that brings up some interesting concepts and thoughts. I guess really the seller's value add is that they have gone to the effort of finding what you wanted and listing it at a price that is acceptable to you with free shipping. Is it honourable and integral?

Well it all depends how you look at things, you could argue the same about people who come up with an idea, patent it and then make money from the 'intellectual rights' by licensing that idea to manufacturers. You could argue apart from thinking about it they've done nothing material to deserve the reward they get. Doubly so if the actual development of the idea is carried out by the manufacturer to turn the idea into a product.

I guess where I would have a problem is if the seller has found an item, doubled the price and then drop-shipped it. If they haven't you have to ask yourself just how little are they making out of the deal once you take into consideration all the ebay seller fees etc... There is also a possibility these guys could come un-stuck, Amazon is constantly reviewing and changing prices and an item that is say 50% off and therefore a bargain may only be that for say 24 hours. What if these drop shippers offer it at 75% of the original price and in between the listing and the drop ship order the price has gone back to its original price? Then they will actually be out of pocket unless they cancel your order and eBay won't put up with that too often from one seller...

If I understand correctly..if the seller has forked out the $99 per year Amazon Prime fee to be able to be a "drop shipper", and has made it possible for a buyer to be able to benifit from Prime buying rewards without having to pay that yearly fee themselves, then yes, the "dropper" has fulfilled a great service to the buyer and should be rewarded.

This is certainly unethical. Sadly, it is really difficult for Amazon to track. Amazon didn't say you can't purchase the item and resell them at a higher price.

This is like saying using the points from your credit card purchase toward gift cards or certificates. Then flip the gift cards for cash. No one really get hurt from the transactions. Amazon got their cut. Seller got their cut. Buyer got what they want.

This is certainly unethical. Sadly, it is really difficult for Amazon to track. Amazon didn't say you can't purchase the item and resell them at a higher price.

This is like saying using the points from your credit card purchase toward gift cards or certificates. Then flip the gift cards for cash. No one really get hurt from the transactions. Amazon got their cut. Seller got their cut. Buyer got what they want.

Actually I would think it would be dead easy for Amazon to track, after all every time the dropshipper wanted to send a parcel to a client they will have to add a new delivery address to their profile for that shipment. I'm sure most people only have at most a couple of shipment addresses, so anyone with a large number should stick out like a sore thumb.

However as you say Amazon still get their cut from the sale, so maybe they are content with that and simply allow it to happen. Unless they have someting in their T&Cs that specifically outlaw someone doing this they can't really do much anyway even if they wanted to.

Actually I would think it would be dead easy for Amazon to track, after all every time the dropshipper wanted to send a parcel to a client they will have to add a new delivery address to their profile for that shipment. I'm sure most people only have at most a couple of shipment addresses, so anyone with a large number should stick out like a sore thumb.

Yes this is based on the assumption that sellers make a lot of sales.

[Super]

Great discussion, all good points for and against. I would say there really isn't any right or wrong answer here as long as it doesn't bother Amazon. I would be curious to see the rules one would have to agree to when signing up with Prime. Especially if there is any mention of personal use only. Doesn't Prime membership also include movies and music? Would this allow the same Drop Shipper members to start selling those if its the same as physical items?

I would think Amazon already tracks these Sellers as its easy for them to identify those members whose Gift Receipts are the majority of their purchases. Anyone can buy on Amazon and have it shipped to someone else without the need to change their Profile. A normal person buying items wouldn't have a whole lot of purchases being sent to other addresses than their own so Amazon could figure that out easily. So they could certainly curtail this trend simply by limiting the number of shipping options other than the members own address. Since this would be so simple for them to do, it looks like they don't care and are satisfied with the volume of purchase even though this must add to their over all shipping costs exponentially. Which brings up the question...are they making as much since their shipping costs, free 2 day shipping, is rising so much because of these Drop Shippers but they are not getting a piece of the pie. Wonder if they have considered a Drop Shipper level of Prime where the membership Fee is higher simply by tracking their Gift shipping, I am sure they have.

Back to my original thought....I feel weird giving an Ebay Seller top Feedback scores even though I am very happy with the experience since it was Amazon that really did everything but they certainly don't warrant anything less I guess. None of this would matter if I would have needed something that added up to over $35 and I got Free Shipping myself as I much prefer buying direct from Amazon as they take returns so easily. Which brings up the question...if I buy something from the Drop Shipper and want to return it, what are they going to do, make me ship it back to Amazon? Do I ship it back to the Seller and they deal with Amazon because they are the purchaser? Your thoughts.