I get this question a lot on how to make sure your eBay account doesn't get suspended when you're dropshipping. I have been doing this for 8 years and rarely ever see this happen to me anymore.

So the main theme we have to understand in all of this is eBay's bottom line. In the end, eBay is a business, and anything that hurts their bottom line is going to be bad for them, and they will try to cut it off.

There are two main subcategories within this theme:

A) BBE (Bad Buyer Experience)
B) Fraud/Risk Management

I will discuss both of these topics.

A) BBE (Bad Buyer Experience)

Concept:

If a buyer is not pleased with the transaction, they will be unhappy and may either leave eBay, ask for a refund, or cancel the order. In all of these cases, eBay loses money: they lose a shopper, and they lose the fee they were getting from the sale.

Ways buyers express their discontent:

1. Leaving negative feedback
2. Opening up a case (Item Not Received)
3. Asking for a return
4. You canceling the order

The worst of these is when they open up a case. Now eBay is losing money because they are not profiting from your selling fees, and it's even worse if eBay has to step in and handle it.

How to handle each scenario:

1. Leaving negative feedback

If a buyer leaves negative feedback, it means that you have let the transaction turn sour. Usually, it means you're not communicating with the buyer. Buyers will usually message you first before they take action, and even if you can't give them a resolution, if your customer service is great and they feel happy with the attention you gave them, they won't leave bad feedback. So the solution is to make sure you keep them happy.

I like to use ChatGPT and copy the entire chat transcript and tell ChatGPT, "Make him happy," and it will generate a lot of nice words to keep the shopper happy.

If for some reason the buyer leaves negative feedback, I like to refund the customer and see if that will make him happy. But first, I always ask him if this will resolve his issue before I give the refund; otherwise, you may just give a refund, and it will be for nothing. Once he's happy, I ask him to revise the feedback.

2. Opening up cases for Item Not Received

If a buyer opens a case, it usually means they didn't get the item. I don't upload tracking to eBay, so the way that I overcome this is every time I get a sale and ship out the item, I message the customer with the expected delivery date, so they can keep a lookout for when it's coming.

The biggest reason they open cases is because they actually didn't get the item. This is usually due to your Amazon account not shipping the item out—maybe you don't have funds on your credit card, or maybe there's a delay on Amazon. When you notice these things, reach out to the buyer and let them know. If they tell you they didn't get the item, I like to just ask them if they want me to reship the item, and they usually say yes. So don't argue with the shopper; just resolve their problem via messages and make them happy.

3. Asking for a return

In this case, I like to ask the buyer if they want a partial refund, and if they do, great—case closed. If not, I will just accept the return and send an Amazon return label to them. If the return is still open before the date that eBay is going to step in, I refund them so I don't get eBay involved and continue to process the returns via direct messages. The main point is, you don't want eBay to step in.

4. You canceling the order

The main reasons people cancel orders are:

1. They are not profitable. If you are not profitable, just ship the item out; it's not worth putting your account at risk.
2. The item is out of stock. If the item is out of stock, click here (I wrote a detailed solution for this).

B) Fraud/Risk Management

Reason Your Account Gets Suspended: Fraud/Risk Management

1. Listing high-risk items on a new account. When you make a brand new eBay account and you start listing TVs, Xboxes, and iPhones, eBay gets scared. So what I like to do is warm up the account properly for a week by listing low-risk items so I don't get flagged by their risk management/fraud bots. So I will list a book, a mug, some coffee snacks, or something that isn't related to fraudsters, and do that for a week. The next week, I would start listing my dropshipped items.
2. **Growing too fast.**Let's say you're getting $5,000 in sales a month, and then next month you get $100,000—that will freak eBay out. Your growth on eBay has to be consistent and not too rapid; otherwise, it will scare them. You have proven yourself to be able to sell $5k/month, so next month you increase sales to $7k and onwards, so you grow while building incremental trust points with eBay.

So these are what I do to avoid getting suspended on eBay.

P.S:
I made a post on how beginners can get started dropshipping on ebay, for anyone that wants to learn how to do it. Beginners Guide.

P.P.S:

Join The Ebay Dropshipping Discord