Why do some sellers trade under multiple accounts?

Legacy_user

I've seen an increasing amount of this recently.

Some Ebayers trade under multiple names and multiple Ebay shops. Offering the exact same items, same title names, same prices.

I even found one seller who has 5 ebay stores :eek:. I know this because when I messaged some identical listings asking a question I got the exact same copy & paste response from all of the accounts.

What exactly is the benefit of someone doing this? Are there any Ebay rules against doing this?

lovinituk

They are trying to increase their visibilty across ebay and get a larger share of the market. Its not against ebay rules to have multiple accounts but it is against the rules to have more than a certain amount of listings of the same item. For example you should only have one buy-it-now listing for a particular item across all accounts. You can report the listings if you wish but I wouldn't hold your breath as ebay dont seem too bothered, particulalrly if its a big seller.

System

lovinituk wrote: »

They are trying to increase their visibilty across ebay and get a larger share of the market. Its not against ebay rules to have multiple accounts but it is against the rules to have more than a certain amount of listings of the same item. For example you should only have one buy-it-now listing for a particular item across all accounts. You can report the listings if you wish but I wouldn't hold your breath as ebay dont seem too bothered, particulalrly if its a big seller.

oh no, I would never report them. I was just curious as to what the benefit was. I know ebay stores cost from £14.99 a month, so don't understand why they would pay this multiple times just for a bit of added exposure though ...

terra_ferma

I've noticed that too.
another reason is that ebay's DSR system is ruthless as rather arbitrary, so nobody feels safe trading on ebay, and having more than one shop makes it more likely that one's business can survive.

They must have an ace stock control system though...