In the last week or so, I’ve welcomed my new E-Seller Mastery students to the programme. I’m just getting to know everyone, and during our email conversations so far, one question has cropped up more than once and this concerns the question of having more than one eBay account. This appears to be something that needs clarifying, so for the benefit of everyone, today I can tell you straight off that there is absolutely no problem with sellers (or buyers) having more than one eBay account ID so long as all the accounts are kept in good standing and are used properly.
In fact having more than one account can definitely be an advantage when it comes to selling on eBay as a business, particularly if you are selling products into several different niches or if you are using my Find and Flip technique here
This doesn’t mean that if you are listing products in two or more niches you should immediately go and open a second or third eBay account though, because don’t forget that with more accounts, come more fees payable, plus you’ll need to use a new email address for each account, so it’s only worthwhile doing this if you are established and have more than one or two products on the go as I’ll explain below.
So, what exactly are the advantages?
Well, first of all, consider this. Many eBay sellers purchase items from eBay and then resell them straight away for profit…on eBay – and this may be something that is familiar to you. If this is the case then it is absolutely essential to have separate buying and selling accounts so that you can ‘hide’ the items you have purchased in order to resell. The last thing you want is for a buyer to check your feedback and see the exact item you are now selling to them, purchased at a far lower price the previous week! Whilst you are perfectly within your rights to do this – it is likely to put a potential buyer off as they may feel they are being ripped off! So, by having a ‘buying’ and ‘selling’ account, your customers will not know how much you purchased the item for originally.
Even when using the search facilities on eBay, it is impossible for other eBay users to work out whether you have multiple accounts or just a single account, eBay themselves are the only ones who know how many accounts you have as they can link them up using your registered address. With regard to this, remember that as eBay can link your accounts, if one of your accounts gets suspended – all your accounts will get suspended so you do need to be careful.
So, along side the ‘reselling’ issue, here are 4 more reasons why you might consider opening multiple accounts.
1. Promote customer confidence
Lets use an example: If you are selling electronics and your eBay ID is JohnR_1972XO would this give your buyer the confidence to purchase? Perhaps. But if you are selling electronic goods and your user ID is ElectronicStoreUK or OnlineElectronicSupplies or something similar, then this is likely to inspire much more confidence in your products. This is because your account ID is specific to the niche you sell within and gives the impression that you know exactly what you are doing, you know your products and you are a professional. So, if you are selling numerous products in more than one category or niche regularly, then having multiple accounts can allow you to target your audiences with a much higher precision.
2. Easily promote products in separate niches?
If you have multiple eBay accounts, then you are able to open more than one eBay shop. You are only allowed one eBay shop per account so if you are selling lots of products within multiple niches, unless you categorise your products within your shop, things can get messy! The ability to open one eBay shop per account solves this problem. ?However, as I stated earlier, two shops creates two lots of fees so you should only split your products between accounts if the figures stack up and it makes it worthwhile for you.
3. Protect your feedback?
Having multiple eBay accounts can help you protect your feedback. Lets say that you are unfortunate enough to deal with a couple of bad transactions or some awkward customers and you get some negative comments. These comments will not affect your reputation on every account you have, only the eBay ID that the negatives appear on. So, worst case scenario, you can move your listings from one account over to your account that has a better reputation, or no negative feedbacks. This would be an extreme measure and feedback is rarely so bad that it affects an account to this point, but nevertheless, it’s a good back-up option.
4. Use a little known ‘Cross-Promotion’ Tool?
eBay has some fantastic tools – many of which are just not utilized to their best advantage. For example, there is a tool within eBay shops that allows you to cross-promote other products both within your listings and within emails that eBay sends out. What you may not know is that other sellers items may also be cross-promoted within your listings (and your items in other sellers listings). This could obviously work against you, however, did you know that you can change your default cross promotion rules to promote more targeted items?
You can do this in your ‘Cross-Promotion’ preferences, and if you add very specific keywords relating to your products listed on your other eBay account you can essentially cross-promote your OWN items within your separate eBay listings on each ID to bring extra visibility and sales.
These are all reasons why you might consider opening a second eBay account, but as I’ve said, do consider this carefully as you want it to be a profitable move, not one that eats up the extra!
As always I wish you the best of success,
