Suspended for Drop Shipping
Hello everyone. I was suspended for drop shipping a little over a year ago for 6 months. Most of what I was selling I had in physical inventory, but occasionally I would drop ship. After 6 months, I was reinstated and at first, all of my deliveries were coming from my inventory. I read into Amazon policies that stated that if drop shipping were to be done, it would have to be clear that the sale came from my business. Sometimes when I would deem an item defective, I would then drop ship only from Amazon themselves and ask that it was marked as a gift from my business. Within about two weeks, I was suspended again and have been since. I thought I was complying by their rules and numerous attempts at reinstatement have come up short. Does anyone have any useful suggestions on how I can be reinstated?
10 replies
Seller_LVZcgxAgZ2xBv
Did you even read the rules? The very first bullet point on Amazon's seller help page devoted to drop shipping explicitly forbids doing drop shipping using Amazon or another third party seller on Amazon.
Seller_Hi7wbO2Kbo6bl
I doubt you will be reinstated. You went from bad to worse.Your original infractions were mostly just against Amazon rules. Marking something as a gift that is not is fraudulent.
If you are allowed to use FBA then that will be your only Amazon recourse. If you don't wish to use FBA -- just walk away.
Seller_kIukTwdhvntAp
"Does anyone have any useful suggestions on how I can be reinstated?"
Both @Seller_LVZcgxAgZ2xBv and @Seller_Hi7wbO2Kbo6bl make good points.
In addition, IF you used your Amazon PRIME account to get free shipping as well, you put the nails in your own account coffin.
Sell elsewhere but learn the rules FIRST. You are 99.999% done on here. Amazon gave you a second chance for some reason (VERY RARE these days) and you totally blew it.
Seller_xoWJbjduHnsjK
No offense intended, but just reading the title — it’s clear you were drop shipping, which Amazon has always explicitly prohibited unless you’re the seller of record and all packaging reflects your business. There are no loopholes.
From what you described, it sounds like you continued to drop ship through Amazon even after reinstatement, and tried to bypass rules by marking items as gifts or calling items defective just to fulfill differently. That’s not compliant.
This isn’t about a misunderstanding — Amazon's policies are very clear. Sellers doing this kind of thing create issues for the rest of us trying to run legitimate operations. You might consider other platforms like eBay that are more flexible with fulfillment methods, but Amazon? They’re not likely to reinstate accounts after a second violation — especially if it looks intentional.
I get that this might not be what you want to hear, but it's the honest reality.
Seller_R2dP7Hunjcdj0
Actually, you were violating the posted rules.
I am going to assume you never completed Amazon Seller University (free on this site), where you would have learned to avoid such situations.
I agree that you are done here, especially considering that Amazon gave you a second chance and you repeated the same error that got you suspended in the first place...
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are destined to repeat them.
Good Luck on your next platform. Some free advice? Learn the rules BEFORE you start listing products.
Seller_JKIXE95CHdjVT
This is partially correct. You must have an agreement with the entity who is drop shipping on your behalf. If a buyer purchases an item from Amazon and gets a box from Walmart that says "here's your Walmart order" then we know exactly the type of problem you are experiencing, an angry customer who is complaining to Amazon.
Purchase the item, have it shipped to you, then you ship to the customer when it sells. If you don't have fulfillable inventory in stock, don't list the item for sale.
