Even when using the excellent search facilities on eBay, it is impossible for other eBay users to work out whether you have multiple accounts or 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.
So, here are the 5 reasons why you should consider opening multiple eBay IDs.
1. Give More Confidence To Buyers
Lets use the following example: If you are selling baby goods, and your eBay ID is john1972 would this give your buyer the confidence to purchase? Yes, maybe! But if you are selling baby goods and your user ID is BabyGoodsUK or OnlineBabySupplies or something similar, then this will inspire much more confidence in your products. This is because your eBay ID is specific and tells the buyer that you know exactly what you are doing, you know your products and you are a professional. If you are selling in more than one category or niche regularly, then having multiple IDs will allow you to target your audience with a much higher precision.
2. Ebay Shops / Stores
If you have multiple eBay IDs, 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 into multiple niches, unless you categorise your products correctly, this can look a little messy. The ability to open one eBay shop per account solves this problem.
3. Feedback
Having multiple eBay IDs can help you protect your feedback. If you are unfortunate enough to have a couple of bad transactions and you get some negative comments, they will not affect all of your sales. It will only affect the eBay ID that the negative appears on. You will still have excellent feedback on your other account IDs and can transfer products over if absolutely necessary.
4. Cross-Promotions
eBay has some brilliant tools which allow you to cross-promote other sellers products within your listings and emails. If you use the cross-promotions feature, you can cross-promote your OWN items within your separate eBay listings on each ID to bring extra visibility and sales.
5. Buying on eBay to Resell
Lots of eBay sellers purchase items from eBay and then resell them straight away for profit on eBay! If this is the case then it is essential to have separate buying and selling accounts so that you can hide the items you have purchased in order to resell. Buyers will not know how much you purchased the item for originally this way.
by Amanda O'Brien - 26th May 2009
