A few years ago I was able to casually make an extra couple hundred dollars a month dropshipping on eBay. I invested very little time and didn't put a penny of my own money towards it. I stopped because I didn't need the money and didn't want to stay on top of my account.Dropshipping is a reselling method used mostly by individuals. It allows you to sell a product for a profit with out ever buying it upfront or stocking it. Most dropshippers use eBay as their retail venue. The system is pretty simple and usually requires no investment or membership charges. The supplier sells an item at wholesale and has a picture and description available online. The retailer then copies the picture and description and lists them on eBay for a higher price than wholesale. When the item is purchased the retailer uses the money received from the buyer to purchase from the supplier and fills an order to send the item to the buyers address.
I tried to come back this year to sell again and make more money this time. It did not work out as planned. eBay's fees have increased again since my hiatus making it close to impossible to mark up items at a profit and stay competitive no matter what supplier you have.
eBay has been cracking down and ridding the marketplace of unethical sellers, which is great, but bad buyers did seem to have had a magnetic attraction to bad sellers. With bad sellers out of the way bad buyers still exist and were showing up in many of my auctions. They bid, win, and don't pay. Which is a huge loss of time. They leave negative feedback for things clearly stated in the description. A negative feedback is debilitating to a new seller.
The worst experience I had was with PayPal. As soon as I started they put my funds on a 21 day hold. Meaning I could no longer pay the supplier directly with the buyers money. This was unexpected but I did have my own funds to move transactions along. It was a pain to wait three weeks to have access to my own money, but it was workable. After I solved that issue my account was 'temporarily locked' until I re-verified my address and bank account. This seemed completely unnecessary as I had verified my account just weeks earlier. This resulted in 48 hours of not being able to send or receive money, at a time where I was selling just over ten items a day. That was once again solved and I went about business as usual.
Less than two weeks after the initial lockout I was once again locked out and told to verify more personal information. I was enraged, but proceeded. Twenty four hours later I was met with a message saying I was a 'high risk' seller and PayPal had made the decision to close my account completely. My funds are still on hold in the closed PayPal account. I cannot access them for 180 days.
It has been a horrible experience this time around. I looked around the web and found many people have been pushed away from doing business on eBay. Even buyers have left the auction site because as eBay's selling fees continue to rise, sellers cannot sell cheaply and make a profit. eBay has been a nightmare this year for me. I will never go back. Think twice before thinking you can run a home business from their site.
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