How eBay dropshipping works with PayPal

Ok, I know I sound new, and its because I am. I have pretty much got the whole concept down about dropshipping and am ready to take the plunge on eBay. I have a new PayPal business account and an eBay account for selling my product. One question: I have no money in PayPal and the items I'm going to sell are too much for me to buy up front. When somebody buys from me on eBay, will that money be available right away so I can turn around and use some of it to buy the item? Or is there a waiting period or something or can I use it immediately? My vendor takes PayPal so I was just going to receive the money via PayPal and then turn right back around and buy from my vendor and have it shipped to my customer. Is this how it works? that easy?

Hi Jamie and welcome to the forum,

You may find that PayPal puts a hold on your account, it's done to many new accounts and lasts up to 28 days. During that period all the funds in that account are locked and you will have no access to them whatsoever.

I suggest you contact PayPal and discuss with them about you being a new account holder and seeing if you can given them your supplier's details for them to verify upfront. No guarantee, but you may find if they have this information up front it may well reduce your account's holding period.

What some do is sell one item only, pay for that out of their own pocket and then wait for the account to be reopened before trading any further, so that could also be an option to get you past that early hump in the road. Either way, I have always found PayPal much easier to work with when I approach them to head off any possible upcoming issue, rather then waiting for them to contact me, so I would recommend the same to other members.

Hi Jamie, Marc gave some good advice. It always helps to talk to PayPal about your situation. Currently, their restrictions on new accounts are as follows:

Up to 21 day hold on your funds for the first 90 days until you've done 25 sales transactions totaling $1,000.

It wouldn't hurt to call them because I know a few colleagues who got their holds lifted sooner.

Best wishes!

Wyteria Jacobo