Digital Dropshipping *Warning* Game Keys

FreshPrince78

Just wanted to tell my story so as no-one else is left out of pocket. So I was looking at Dropshipping products from Ali express and other wholesalers but realised the market was so saturated there was little money to be made so thought about what was popular and obviously gaming sprung to mind. My idea was to dropship digital game keys/codes, advertise them on-line for a small mark-up and enough to cover selling/transaction charges, once an order had been placed buy the key from an on-line site selling cheap and email the code to my buyer. All made sense in my head so thought why not try 'Digital Dropshipping'. So put my first few ads up and whoohoo first sale, a few days later another sale, this is great, put up a few more ads a few more sales then boom............ 4 sales from 1 buyer great this could work. then 8 hours later a message from eBay and PayPal Un-authorised transaction!!!! gulp what do I do now? eBay says please do not ship the goods to this buyer, too late already emailed them, Paypal puts the money onto Pending status and requests evidence of proof of delivery, lucky me I've kept all emails in my sent items, evidence submitted. Curiosity gets the better of me so I google this type of situation and low and behold it is rife! buyers purchasing codes then claiming un-authorised transactions and worse sellers sending used codes!! my question was why would buyers purchase a code then claim un-authorised transaction? well as it turns out e-bay the digital on-line auction/selling site and Paypal the digital on-line money transfer site don't cover digital goods that are delivered digitally or on-line!! doh! (I should have read the T&Cs) as it turns out Paypal refunded the buyer as per their policy even though I provided evidence the codes were e-mailed to them and I am now £35 out of pocket, not a fortune I know but it had the potential to be a bigger loss had I not been targeted so early on. So after a bit of digging this is not a new scam but in trying to boost my income I have become a victim of cyber fraud whether actual cyber fraud or someone who knows how to play the system using/abusing the digital policies of both eBay & PayPal. I realise I should have done a bit more homework before starting such a venture but I guess I am just too trusting so hey ho Digital Dropshipping not for me at this time. Lesson Learned - read the T&Cs.

19lottie82

I’m pretty sure dropshipping isn’t allowed on eBay?

MataNui

You wont get much sympathy. Drop shippers are the scourge of ebay and one of the reasons its such a poor place to shop these days. They make out they are honest UK suppliers (Its the only way they can make a profit by charging more than the company they are drop shipping from who is probably ALSO selling the same product on ebay cheaper) then deliver cheap Chinese crap that you wait weeks for. When it all goes wrong they moan and cry and tell you to return the item to China.

Anyone who rips off a drop shipper gets a thumbs up from me.

RFW

19lottie82 wrote: »

I’m pretty sure dropshipping isn’t allowed on eBay?

It is. It's pretty much impossible to police. A lot of my products end up being dropshipped from my Amazon store to Ebay customers. It's the only reason I bother listing anything on Ebay to try and stop people being overcharged for my goods.

There are restrictions on selling downloadable items https://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/downloadable.html

RFW

Dropshipping seems to me to be a fool's errand. There are some sellers that seem to do ok by having a massive amount of goods for sale. They're happy to earn 50p/listing as they sell several thousand without doing much work. For smaller sellers it only takes one chargeback or lost parcel to wipe out profit.

There are no shortcuts to selling. Find a product you know something about, source it (or manufacture it), sell it. Three easy steps that only take a few years to get right. Don't follow what's selling, follow what you know.

FreshPrince78

MataNui
Thanks for the comments but I wasn’t looking for sympathy!
I was trying to highlight 2 things to help anyone who is looking to or needs to boost their income.
1) please read the T&Cs of the platform you are using (obvious I know)
2) There are people out there who are deliberately trying to take your money by using the digital policy of digital platforms against you!

Gary123456790

As you've already worked out, selling digital items is very difficult - there is nothing physically delivered so if any buyer raises an issue, you can't prove physical delivery and you will lose.

With drop-shipping, it can work very well if done right but just copy/paste and markup anyone can do so everyone is doing it, there is nothing to distinguish yourself.

emperorstevee

FreshPrince, exactly the same thing happened to me when I sold digital codes, and it really messed up my account as I had other issues going on aswell. They clearly know the scamming that "buyers" engage in with digital goods as it happens so much but they continue to take the buyer's side. They will say some rubbish about not having enough resources, yet they make billions. However, their sellers that make them this money are not worth a fraction of that to defend their rights. I had 5 people, all on the same day at the same time buy my PSN codes and then all, at the same time, tell Paypal that they were hacked. Yeah, really believable. Yet Paypal took their side and froze my Paypal account for months, despite the fact that even if it were true that they were hacked, that wasn't my fault so they don't need to freeze my account. Don't listen to MataNui. "They sell cheap chinese crap" where does he/she think all the retail goods come from? Hint - it says on the back of a PS4 controller.

jameshouston135

hmm it is really surprising. However i am going to share with you something little bit different one of my close friend also doing a dropshipping business with amazon and ebay and they are still smoothly running their online store just of few days before one of my friend also wrote article on it that how can you start your dropshipping business on amazon or ebay where he also told that amazon is a very much risky to depend specially for seller person.

ballisticbrian

hmm it is really surprising. However i am going to share with you something little bit different one of my close friend also doing a dropshipping business with amazon and ebay and they are still smoothly running their online store just of few days before one of my friend also wrote article on it that how can you start your dropshipping business on amazon or ebay where he also told that amazon is a very much risky to depend specially for seller person.

so... your friends been running a similar business, but theirs has been going smoothly.. for a few days.

forgotmyname

Me thinks James is post building....

Inane comments on several threads, some months old.