Important: Drop Shipping Policy update

#1

If you fulfill orders using a third party, a practice known as drop shipping, you must follow all Amazon policies in order to ensure a consistent customer experience that easily identifies only you as the seller of record.

As an important reminder, all violations of the Drop Shipping Policy can break customer trust. As a result, any violation of our Drop Shipping Policy will negatively impact your account health and your ability to fulfill future orders using our Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN).

The following drop shipping methods are strictly prohibited on Amazon:

  • You may not purchase products from another retailer and have that retailer ship directly to customers, if:
    • the shipment does not identify you as the seller of record
    • anyone other than you appears on packing slips, invoices, or external packaging
      Note: This means that the name, logo, or any other identifying information from the other retailer may not appear on what the customer receives.
  • You may not ship orders with packing slips, invoices, external packaging, or other information indicating a seller name or contact information other than your own

If you fulfill using drop shipping, you must strictly adhere to following requirements of our policy:

  • You must always be the seller of record of your products, meaning you identify yourself as the seller of your products on all information included with the item.
  • Remove any information identifying the third-party drop shipper before shipping.
  • Be responsible for accepting and processing customer returns.

You should comply with all terms of your seller agreement and applicable Amazon policies. If you have questions, see the Drop Shipping Policy page.

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#2

You said the same thing twice.

#3

There is nothing in this ā€œupdateā€ that is new. It says the exact same thing as the existing policy, although in a much more clear and direct manner. So Iā€™m all for that.

I actually dream of the day Amazon moves to require ALLLLLLL shipping labels use Amazon Buy Shipping, because this would effectively kill the online arbitrage drop shippers. :smiling_imp:

#4

:point_down::point_down::point_down::point_down::point_down:
E X T E R N A L
P A C K A G I N G
:point_up::point_up::point_up::point_up::point_up:

  • No Walmart, Costco, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, Chewy, etc boxes.
  • No eBay tape.
  • No reused or repurposed boxes that look like drop shipping.

This is a big deal.

#5

Thereā€™s a distinction needed here between dropshipping as a business model and fulfillment of the occasional order by someone other than the seller of record because he/she unexpectedly cannot fulfill themselves.

That happens to me. I replace with care in my choice of what to buy and from whom to buy. The draconian effects of cancelling make that unavoidable from time to time. And unless itā€™s since been removed, I recall Amazon instructions about cancelling always included dropshipping as an alternative to cancelling an order.

Iā€™m not comforted by this supposed ā€˜update/clarification.ā€™

#6

Its clear, you will be banned!

#7

I doubt most drop-shippers even care about following this. :man_shrugging:

#8

Based on the copy of the Drop Shipping Policy in this February 2019 Forum post, the underlined portion might be new in the current policy:

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ETA: The new policy is definitely changed as noted above according to this screenshot from September 2018:

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#9

I donā€™t quite agree with this. How about other sellers that donā€™t ship their items out on time. Guess I will take watch all my inventory and see what I have. Then again this could work in certain ways.

#10

I wouldnā€™t say banned. This goes for people that help with chinese sellers. This could go anyway. Then again my selling is better. I have learned somethings. We shall see what happens.

#11

I hope this will finally get implemented.
Yes the Policy has been around for a looong time and the drop shippers did not care.
They probably still do not care.
I had to cancel an order from a known, discussed ad infinitum, drop shipper on these Fora and take the metric hit.
Did that yesterday as I do not sanction this known drop shipper or care to deal with any return of inferior product from them or the give me a refund with no return or NAD condition.
When Amazon will ENFORCE these rules they have promulgated, then I will not have to take metric hits for not allowing a known drop shipper to take advantage of me and Amazon buyers.

#12

if the seller is taking full responsibility for the order whatā€™s wrong with dropshipping? why should the buyer care if he didnā€™t have the time to search the whole web to find this item, and when it is not good just return it what you simply donā€™t get the return feature on other sites?

#13

Looks like Amazon just legalized retail arbitrage and retail stores as a legitimate source of products. Not that they care, half the time policies are not followed by Amazonā€™s agents themselves, whatā€™s one more policy to break. LOL

#14

Invoices are still required, in many/most cases

#15

How to know whether I was identified as the seller of record or not?

#16

This does not go far enough!

What about all the drop shippers who win the buy box with their $900 ā€œNewā€ item that they do not have in their possession?

Also, I have had people buy some of my CDs or cassettes and ask that I do not include any invoice but do not say anything about including their information. Isnā€™t that against the rules and how are we supposed to add the information on the person who purchased the item?

#17

Pretty easy. You either have an arrangement with your manufacturer to properly identify you or you order the item, have it shipped to you, then you ship it to your customer.

#18

If a drop shipper ships through me and I put an invoice in the package they can get in trouble, correct? It would list me as the seller, not them. How could they possibly drop ship anything off of Amazon as it would show the seller not the drop shipper. Plus the price would show what I sell it for not what the drop shipper sells it for. This whole drop shipping thing sound like a cluster you-know-what.

#19

Maybe they will actually enforce this now? I know in the past I reported a few sellers and Amazon seemed to do something but itā€™s a lot of work. Hopefully they have some mechanism in place to detect this. There are million dollar seller accounts still which business model is to violate this policy.

#20

IF they actually enforce it. In the past 18 months, I have received items from Walmart, Costco and Sams Club and mentioned that in the seller feedback. Amazon (or someone with access) removed the feedback in each case and those sellers are still selling. :roll_eyes: