eBay Blocks Aquiline & Bluecare Express Shipping In Amazon Dropshipping Crackdown
eBay is finally taking action to crackdown on policy-violating Amazon dropshippers, blocking Aquiline & Bluecare Express shipping methods that are often used to circumvent dropshipping policies.
Officially, eBay policy has stated for many years that sellers can dropship from wholesalers with whom they have contracts and agreements, but listing items for sale and then purchasing them from another retailer or marketplace is not allowed.
However, this policy has been very rarely enforced over the years, much to the dismay of buyers who are constantly frustrated by negative experiences when their eBay orders come in an Amazon Prime box or worse - never arrive at all or are cancelled because the item went out of stock or the price went up before the policy violating seller could place the order.
Liz Morton
In order to keep their eBay accounts in good standing and defend against claims, these sellers must upload valid tracking numbers, but if they use their Amazon Prime account to purchase an item to fulfill an eBay order, the may run into issues because those shipments often have an Amazon shipment tracking number that doesn't qualify as one of the integrated carriers that eBay's systems can track, like UPS, FedEx, or USPS.
To get around this problem, some enterprising third parties created intermediary "carriers" that would create tracking numbers that could be uploaded into eBay's systems for these Amazon Prime shipments - Aquiline and Bluecare Express being two of the largest such companies.
Searching either company name in the eBay community forums will quickly reveal why this practice is almost universally hated by buyers and why eBay would want to crackdown on the negative experiences it creates.
I made a purchase on eBay. Several days went by with no formal acknowledgement about my order. After numerous attempts to cancel seeing no tracking provided for days, I figured cancel would get through. I told seller after several days of being blown off, I contacted eBay. Magically the seller posted AQUILINE tracking information.
AQUILINE has no direct customer service, if you try and track it routes to a third party place that claims they only post what the shipping company enters,so no responsibility. I have ring camera around my doors and home cameras. I never got a delivery from AQUILINE just the bogus tracking sheel from a no name company.
The seller ,sneaky, purchased a 3part receipt book from Amazon as Gift from Seller, as a recipient I would not be able to see who Gift Seller was but the Seller would, therefore using Amazon tracking to clone a tracking number for AQUILINE a fake carrier from this seller.
I DO NOT LIKE Amazon!! I got rid of my Amazon account! I do not like Jeff Bezos' politics or how he is trying monopolize everything he can touch! And I do not wish MY money to support him! So, I use Ebay.
BUT Every item I have been buying lately off Ebay, turns out to just be from sellers who do not even touch the item! What they do is buy from Amazon at a cheaper price, the item comes to me straight from Amazon, while the seller sits back and collects the difference for doing nothing!
This annoys me! I am upset that Ebay allows these sellers to email me tracking numbers from " Bluecare Express" , which is NOT LISTED AS THE WAY OF SHIPPING IN THE SHIPPING DESCRIPTION!
Dropshipping software company AutoDS even proudly touts how they use Aquiline to circumvent eBay limitations on this type of marketplace arbitrage dropshipping as well as item location policies that state the item must ship from the zip code on the listing.
What is Aquiline service?
AutoDS’ integration with Aquiline will make sure to convert all your tracking numbers coming from the different shipping carriers to Aquiline tracking, according to the zip code you chose on the Settings page in AutoDS.Converting to Aquiline is going to add your own zip code for the tracking numbers. So, eBay will consider all your items are being shipped from the same location.
As explained, AutoDS will use the default supplier setting zipcode you have inserted and update it for these tracking numbers. That means that the chance to be flagged by eBay for dropshipping will be drastically decreased as eBay will see you are shipping the items from the same zip code you publish them from!
But it looks like these dropshippers will be out of luck next month as eBay has started to inform some sellers via email that Bluecare Express and Aquiline will no longer be supported as integrated carriers and starting July 8, they will need to upload actual carrier provided tracking numbers that are on the shipping labels for the items buyers will receive.
If you know, you know. Its over :)) pic.twitter.com/P7z8PIgSZD
— Thai Nguyen (@thainguyeno) June 6, 2024
I've previously suggested that eBay should consider following along with social media companies tackling user verification by providing a way for buyers to identify and select to shop with verified stocking sellers as part of their ongoing trust building initiatives and while I'd still love to see such a program put into place, cracking down on some of the most blatant violations like this is a great first step.
Even better - eBay could take bold action to shutdown API access to software that enables these policy violators, like Etsy has recently done to AutoDS, ShineOn and CShip/CJ Dropshipping.
These moves are likely being spurred on by recent regulatory and legislative changes that are increasingly seeking to hold marketplaces responsible for the items sold on their platforms and for vetting and verifying third party sellers
For example, the INFORM Consumers Act passed last year explicitly requires disclosure when a high volume third party seller uses a different seller to supply the product upon purchase - otherwise known as online arbitrage dropshipping.
Liz Morton
What do you think about eBay cracking down on Amazon shipments using Aquiline and Bluecare Express tracking? Is there more eBay can and should be doing to enforce their dropshipping policies? Let us know in the comments below!
