I notice that there is one buyer who keeps buying my product over and over since last year. I had not noticed it until he bought it for the 11th time. The shipping address of all 11 addresses and names were different (and none had his name). That’s why I believe that he could be drop shipping my product. Frankly I’m not complaining and a bit flattered The shipping cost was always zero. So I think he has Walmart+ which is similar to Amazon Prime. I only know his buyer name. I tried to google but found nothing.
If he actually drop ships my product, I would offer his a discount for other products for him to dropship.
I do not have an answer, but I have found out who a drop shipper was in the past from returns.
I have had recipients return the packages to our address with a copy of the original invoice/packing slip from the drop shipper.
Side note: sometimes image searching your main product image on google or bing, may show other offers across marketplaces like eBay. Make sure to click on the Shopping Tab.
Call me crazy but I would NOT offer them any discount. The reason is that they are marking up your prices already which can have a negative effect on how customers view your product.
I would do what @Old-Timer says and try to see where they are selling your items. It might be a new market opportunity for YOU!
As dwat0870 said, don’t do this. They would probably ask for authorization letters from your brand, then you really have no recourse when they start counterfeiting your brands. I fully understand it’s kind of flattering that your products are good enough someone else wants to sell them but that’s just the beginning. After that it becomes a headache.
As a brand owner, I have to deal with customers who are disgruntled with the drop shipper. I have no idea if what they received was a legitimate or fake but if it’s my brand, I try to take care of the customer to keep a good name for my brand. My official warranty policy is that the warranty is for the original purchaser only. Legally I could tell customers to pound sand, but they’ll never buy a product from me again so I try to take care of anything that is reasonable. Yes, that’s sure to be a loss for me but I can make it up with future sales.
I was lucky enough to have my brand gated by Amazon after many, many instances of counterfeiting but I have to scroll through Ebay, Walmart daily to at least try and keep it under control.
Do what you can to try and limit this stuff before it gets out of hand. No one else is going to care about your brand or it’s reputation. They can ruin it and move on to something else.
I agree with the above sentiments. As long as the dropshipping listings are legitimate and do not compromise your brand or products in any way I wouldn’t care if they were being dropshipped, but I would caution against trying to encourage this relationship. This is not a vendor that came to you in good faith with a business opportunity, this is a seller trying to freeload off the quality and reputation of your brand by making money with virtually no value added at the expense of customers. The odds of such a relationship not blowing up in your face are low enough that I would just avoid it from the start.
I too would keep my distance and not offer any discounts.
There are a large number of sellers who are attempting to run dropship businesses from countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Turkey. Nothing wrong with them, per se. But there is a lot of commonality in how they source, suggesting sharing of sources.
If you encourage them, you may find a cheapening of your brand and it being affected by their long distance customer service and their failures.
Google around a bit–you will find websites set up by Pakis, etc. selling a business model of setting up an LLC in Wyoming to drop ship to Amazon customers from Walmart and Sam’s Club.
If you don’t mind your products being resold, I would just do nothing except monitor the situation. You don’t want to offer them anything since you DO NOT want to do business with a drop shipper. If they become a problem then you can get their listings taken down if necessary (hence monitor the situation).
They are also likely abusing their walmart prime membership, but that’s walmart’s problem, not yours.
There are US based dropshippers that ship off my Amazon listings as well as some foreign ones. When it started I hated it because a lot of them were the scammy types with return abuse, AtoZ abuse, etc. After playing hardball with a few of them I guess word got around because I haven’t had those kinds of problems in a few years, and the dropshippers that still order from me I just view as more business.
That said, it is important to note that of the items being dropshipped, I do not own the brand and I am not the manufacturer, nor do I have exclusive rights from the manufacturers. I am just a convenience and affordable avenue for these DSers to ship from. I do not have to process such considerations as Brand Integrity.
Came here to say this and point it out to @HumbleWarrior as why I personally would not want to encourage a formal relationship with them, and would instead monitor very closely for any issues.
If they are already playing loose with someone else’s rules and policies, there’s zero reason to expect that they would uphold any agreement with you.
I’m not opposed to freight forwarders, Amazon took care of a few INR’s on items purchased with forwarders because the tracking showed they were delivered to the forwarders.
I do not appreciate drop shippers, they are using my products to fleece buyers. Now I list on other sites with the same price so there are more online search results for my offers, my price.
Some years ago, I had a buyer contact me by email through my website who was upset that I sent her the wrong item color. I could not find an order from her on any site and with some back and forth found out she ordered it from a site I’m not on. That site featured my listing info with both original color variations, my photos, my copy, etc; much higher price. I had sold out a year earlier of the color she ordered, they didn’t reduce their stock quantity. When the drop-shipper ordered from me they just ordered the wrong color that I had left in stock instead of canceling her order. I did not realize at the time it was a drop ship. She was trying to replace one she bought from me a few years earlier on Amazon, and ended up on the other site because that was the only one Google found in the color she wanted, the same as the one she had that got dropped and broken.
I had to explain to the buyer what had occurred and why I could not issue her a refund. She filed a chargeback against the seller, reported him to the BBB and left him a scathing Google review.
That experience left me leery of any drop-shippers ordering from me. I used to print and include a packing slip with the price and sold by … on Amazon highlighted when I was sure a buyer was drop-shipping. I noticed recently that they are claiming the orders to be gifts and the price paid is now left off the packing slip. I still circle ‘sold on Amazon by …’.
Note to drop shippers, you may want to avoid my products!
That buyer said she wished she could leave me good feedback on Amazon but she could not because she didn’t order it there. She shipped the wrong color one to me at her expense since it was not what she wanted. I filed a complaint with Amazon.
All of my FBM listings are opted out for “gift” options. Is this something that would make a difference, or no? (I honestly don’t know as I’ve been almost exclusive FBA for many years and am now only coming around to more FBM since the low inventory fee and the crazy “placement” fees have been introduced).
Unfortunately many of my FBM only items are very often purchased as gifts, especially around holidays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, weddings. I will look into opting out other items that aren’t typically purchased as gifts though, thanks for that tip. I had a few orders for a new sku recently that I’m pretty sure were drop shipped by an eBay seller. Since I’ve now listed it on eBay too those have stopped.
I would NOT do this. This is a half measure to call attention to this to annoy their customer, which may result in them wanting to return it, which will result in the drop shipper opening a return with you (and it will certainly be seller faulted).
If you want them to stop drop shipping your product, track down their listings and get them pulled/send cease and desists. Or fulfill their order as you would any other customer and treat them as your customer (because they still are). Even if you’re going the get their listings pulled route, in the mean time you still want to fulfill their orders in a way that least likely results in any issues since any problems ultimately creates more headaches for yourself.
I don’t have near the amount of drop shipper orders as I used to. Never had one try to return. I have had a few pretty big drop-shippers that sold from their own websites back off after I started drawing attention to where the item really came from.
That’s surprising given that one grievance people have with drop shippers is they abuse returns/A-Z claims. Note that even if it’s their own website, if they’re using a US based webhost, you can still issue a takedown. You can send the webhost a DMCA complaint for the page that has your copyrighted images.
Yup but circling sold on Amazon on a packing slip is easier, faster and so far effective for me. And it’s not always the same item or even the same brand. Some are scrapers and some are eBay’ers, but it’s become very infrequent except for the recent new sku that I’ve now undermined at the source: eBay.
The shipping cost was always zero. So I think he has Walmart+ which is similar to Amazon Prime. I only know his buyer name. I tried to google but found nothing.