Short answer: yes, you can dropship on both Amazon and eBay in the UK, but only one version of dropshipping is allowed on either, and it is not the version most tutorials teach. This page sets out what each marketplace’s own policy says, what gets accounts restricted, and what a £29.99 sale actually leaves you after Amazon fees, eBay fees and card fees, using figures read off the marketplaces’ own UK pages on 15 September 2026. We build Orbit Commerce, an ecommerce platform, so we have a stake in you opening a shop. Every rule and fee below is linked to its source so you can check it without us.
The distinction that decides everything is this: buying wholesale from a supplier who ships to your customer under your name is fine on both. Buying from another shop’s website at retail and having that shop post the parcel is banned on both. The policies use different words for it, so here they are separately.
What does eBay’s drop shipping policy actually say?
eBay draws the line in two sentences. From eBay UK’s dropshipping and product sourcing policy: “Dropshipping, where you fulfil orders directly from a wholesale supplier, is allowed on eBay.” And: “Listing an item on eBay and then purchasing the item from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your customer is not allowed on eBay.” (ebay.co.uk drop shipping policy, checked 15 September 2026.)
The same page keeps the responsibility with you: “If you use dropshipping, you’re still responsible for the safe delivery of the item within the time frame you stated in your listing, and the buyer’s overall satisfaction with their purchase.” Breaking the policy can mean removing the listing, a warning, restricted activity or account suspension.
There is a second rule most people miss, in eBay’s selling practices policy (checked 15 September 2026). Under product availability, sellers are told to “make sure the items you’re offering are in stock for the duration of the listing”, and the things not to do include listing “an item that you’re simultaneously selling outside of eBay without ensuring beforehand that you have enough product available”. That is a rule about your stock count, not your supplier, and it is the one that quietly does the damage. Cancel enough orders because the item had already sold on your own site and your seller level drops.
What does Amazon’s drop shipping policy actually say?
Amazon’s Seller Central help page for the Drop Shipping Policy sits behind bot protection, so we could not fetch its wording to quote directly. Quote the current wording from Seller Central before relying on it. What we could read is Amazon’s own UK seller guidance page on dropshipping (sell.amazon.co.uk, checked 15 September 2026), which states the same requirements in plain terms.
It tells sellers to “Be the only seller of record (paperwork + packaging): Have an agreement with your supplier so you (and only you) are identified as the seller on packing slips, invoices, external packaging, and any other materials included with the product.” It tells you to “Ensure the shipment is free of references to any third party (supplier/other seller) on packaging, packing slips, invoices, or external labels.” And it is explicit that dropshipping does not move the customer relationship: “You remain responsible for customer service and for accepting and processing returns, in line with Amazon policies.”
The prohibition is the mirror image: buying from another online retailer and having them post the parcel, where the shipment does not identify you as the seller or anyone else appears on the paperwork. In practice, Amazon is stricter than eBay in one specific way. eBay bans the sourcing method. Amazon bans the evidence of it. A supplier who agrees to blind-ship under your branding can satisfy Amazon; a retailer whose own invoice goes in the box cannot.
What is retail arbitrage, and why does it get accounts banned?
Retail arbitrage is buying from a public-facing shop at its normal price and reselling at a markup. Applied to dropshipping it means listing a product you have never held, then ordering it from another website with your customer’s address in the delivery field. Most free tutorials teach it, because it needs no supplier and no minimum order.
It gets accounts closed for four ordinary reasons, none of which need a policy team to notice you:
- The paperwork gives it away. Another company’s delivery note in the box is a customer message to Amazon or eBay within the week.
- You cannot control stock. The source shop sells out and your order silently cancels. Late deliveries and cancellations are what the metrics measure.
- You cannot control the price. A source price rise turns a thin margin negative on every order already placed.
- Returns break. Your customer has a legal right to return to you, but you never had the goods and the source shop’s policy is not yours to use. Under UK consumer law you refund anyway, as our guide to UK returns law for online shops sets out.
Wholesale dropshipping, where a real supplier agrees terms with you and ships blind, avoids all four. It is slower to set up, which is exactly why it is less crowded.
What do the fees leave you after a compliant dropship sale?
Here is the arithmetic the tool vendors never print. One product at £29.99 including free delivery, bought from a UK-warehoused supplier for £12.00 delivered, sold three ways. All fee figures read off the marketplaces’ own UK pages on 15 September 2026.
The rates used: Amazon’s referral fee for Home products is “8% for items priced at or up to £20” and “15% for items priced above £20”, charged on “the total price, including item price, shipping cost, and any gift-wrapping charges”, with a Professional selling plan at “£25 (excl. VAT) / month” (sell.amazon.co.uk/pricing). eBay’s final value fee for Home, Furniture and DIY is “11.9% for the portion of the total amount of the sale up to £500”, calculated on a total that “includes the item price, postage, and any applicable taxes”, plus a per-order fee (“For orders £10.00 or less the per-order fee is £0.30, for orders over £10.00 the per-order fee is £0.40”) and “a regulatory operating fee of 0.35%” (eBay UK store selling fees). Own site: Orbit’s Solo plan at £25 a month with card processing at 2% + 25p.
Both subscriptions are spread over an assumed 50 orders a month, which is 50p an order. At 10 orders a month it is £2.50 an order and the table looks different.
| Line | Amazon | eBay | Your own site |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale price including delivery | £29.99 | £29.99 | £29.99 |
| Supplier cost, delivered | −£12.00 | −£12.00 | −£12.00 |
| Marketplace commission | −£4.50 (15%) | −£3.57 (11.9%) | none |
| Per-order fee | none | −£0.40 | none |
| Regulatory operating fee | none | −£0.10 (0.35%) | none |
| Card processing | included | included | −£0.85 (2% + 25p) |
| Subscription, at 50 orders a month | −£0.50 | optional Shop, not included | −£0.50 |
| Left before ads, refunds and tax | £12.99 | £13.92 | £16.64 |
| Total selling cost as % of the sale | 16.7% | 13.6% | 4.5% |
So the marketplaces cost roughly £3.65 and £2.72 more per order than your own checkout. That is not an argument for skipping them. Amazon and eBay hand you demand you would otherwise buy from Google or Meta, and £3.65 is cheap next to a £10 cost per acquired order. It is an argument for knowing which channel each sale came through, and pricing accordingly.
Three adjustments to make to this table before you use it. If you are VAT registered, take output VAT off the top first: at 20%, £29.99 contains £5.00 of VAT, so every margin above drops by five pounds and the model needs a much bigger gap to survive. If you sell on Amazon’s Individual plan instead of Professional you pay “£0.75 (excl. VAT) / item sold” rather than the monthly £25, which is better below about 33 orders a month. And if your goods ship from outside the UK in consignments of £135 or less, UK VAT is due at the point of sale regardless of turnover. On your own site that is your job; where an online marketplace facilitates the sale, the marketplace accounts for it instead (gov.uk, checked 15 September 2026). Our UK dropshipping guide and our guide to VAT for online sellers explain the detail. Check gov.uk before relying on any of this.
What does your supplier have to agree to before you can comply?
Compliance is mostly a supplier conversation, not a listing setting. Get these in writing before you list anything:
- Blind shipping under your name. No supplier invoice, delivery note, promotional insert, returns card or branded tape in or on the parcel. Amazon asks for this explicitly.
- Your details as the sender. Your business name on the label and, where they will do it, your packing slip in the box.
- A stock feed you can actually read. Live quantities, not a monthly spreadsheet. This is what keeps you inside eBay’s product availability rule.
- A stated dispatch time you can repeat in a listing. Both marketplaces hold you to the handling time you publish, so take theirs and add a day.
- A returns route. Where a customer sends the item, who pays, and how fast you are credited. You refund your customer either way, so this decides how much of the refund you eat.
- Price change notice. Seven days is reasonable. Without it your margin is set by someone else.
Order samples before any of this matters. A supplier who will not blind-ship is not a dropship supplier, whatever their website calls itself.
Can you run the same stock on your own site and both marketplaces without overselling?
Yes, but only if one system owns the number. Overselling is not a marketplace problem, it is an arithmetic problem: three channels each thinking they have the last four units will sell twelve. Cancellations follow, and on eBay that is the exact thing that pushes defect rates over threshold.
Orbit’s Amazon and eBay plugins are free on every plan, and they give you one stock count across your own site and both marketplaces. A sale anywhere decrements the same number, listings update, and marketplace orders land in the same list as your own. The two channels each have their own setup guide: selling on Amazon and your own website and selling on eBay and your own website, and the wider picture, including shopping feeds, is in our guide to multichannel selling in the UK and on the sales channels page.
Our advice on sequencing: start on the marketplace that already sells your category, get to a repeatable 50 orders a month, then put the same catalogue on your own site and move repeat buyers there. The other way round means paying for traffic before you know anyone wants the product.
Questions people ask about dropshipping on Amazon and eBay
Is dropshipping allowed on eBay UK?
Yes, in one form. eBay’s policy says dropshipping where you fulfil orders directly from a wholesale supplier is allowed, and that listing an item then buying it from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your customer is not allowed (ebay.co.uk, checked 15 September 2026). You remain responsible for delivery within your stated time frame.
Does Amazon allow dropshipping in the UK?
Yes, if you are the only seller identified on the paperwork. Amazon’s UK seller guidance says to have an agreement with your supplier so you and only you appear as the seller on packing slips, invoices and external packaging, and to keep the shipment free of third-party references. Buying from another retailer who ships with their own paperwork is prohibited.
What fees does Amazon charge a UK dropshipper?
A referral fee on the total price including delivery, typically 8% to 15% by category with a £0.25 minimum, plus either £25 excluding VAT a month on the Professional plan or £0.75 per item sold on the Individual plan (sell.amazon.co.uk/pricing, checked 15 September 2026). On a £29.99 Home product at 15%, that is £4.50 plus your share of the subscription.
What fees does eBay charge a UK dropshipper?
A final value fee by category, 11.9% for Home, Furniture and DIY up to £500, calculated on the item price plus postage plus taxes, a per-order fee of £0.30 under £10 or £0.40 above it, and a regulatory operating fee of 0.35% (ebay.co.uk, checked 15 September 2026). On a £29.99 sale that totals £4.07.
Can I sell the same stock on Amazon, eBay and my own website?
Yes, provided a single system holds the stock number and updates every channel when anything sells. eBay’s selling practices policy specifically warns against listing an item you are also selling elsewhere without making sure you have enough available. Without shared stock you will cancel orders, and cancellations are what damage seller metrics.
If you want the marketplaces and your own shop working off one catalogue and one stock count, that is what Orbit does: free Amazon and eBay plugins on every plan, orders from all three in one list, card processing at 2% + 25p on Solo and no platform fee on sales. There is a 14-day free trial, no card required, so you can wire up the listings and check the fee arithmetic against a real checkout before you pay anything. Start free, or read the pricing first.