Amazon

What Amazon\'s dropshipping policy actually forbids

The confusion here is genuine and expensive. Amazon permits dropshipping, states so explicitly, and suspends sellers for dropshipping every day. Both of those are true because they are talking about different things.

The rule in one sentence

You must be the seller of record, and the parcel must not identify anyone else.

That is the whole policy. Everything else follows from it.

What that permits

Sourcing from a supplier who ships directly to your customer is fine, provided the packing slip, invoice and exterior packaging identify you as the seller. Arrangements where a manufacturer or wholesaler ships under your branding are explicitly contemplated.

That is a normal supply chain and Amazon has no issue with it.

What it forbids

Buying from another retailer and having that retailer ship to your customer. This is the practice most people mean when they say dropshipping, and it is prohibited - not because of the fulfilment model, but because the customer receives a parcel from a different retailer.

• A parcel arriving in another retailer is branded packaging
• A packing slip or invoice naming a different seller
• Marketing inserts or promotions from another company
• A return address that is not yours

Why Amazon cares

From the customer is point of view, they bought from you and received a parcel from someone else, frequently with a price on the invoice lower than they paid. That is a bad customer experience and it undermines the marketplace.

Understanding the reasoning helps, because it tells you where the line is when a specific case is ambiguous: ask what the customer sees when they open the box.

The practical requirement

Your supplier has to be willing to ship blind, or under your branding. That is a normal request for a wholesaler and an impossible one for a consumer-facing retailer.

So the policy is effectively a filter on supplier type. Suppliers who will do it are suppliers you can build on. Suppliers who will not are a suspension waiting to happen, no matter how good the price is.

Verify rather than assume

Order from your own listing occasionally and look at what arrives. It is the only way to know what the customer actually receives, and suppliers change their packaging without telling you.

Sellers are caught out by exactly this: an arrangement that was compliant for a year, a supplier who started including a promotional insert, and a policy violation that arrived through no decision of the seller at all.

If you are already exposed

Fix the supply chain before volume grows. A handful of orders through a non-compliant route is a risk. Hundreds is a business built on something that can be switched off without notice.

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