eBay Username Filter

July 17, 2006 9:04 AM

A friend of mine has been running a successful business on eBay for several years selling collectibles related to the music industry. He is branching out into furniture and other antiques. He is thinking about using a separate user name from his regular business. There's

He says that several other vendors he is familliar with do this. My question here is, other then for fraudulent purposes, why would someone want to sell items under multiple usernames on eBay?

posted by lester to shopping (5 comments total)

Clarity, perhaps?

BobsCollectibles, BobsFurniture, BobsAntiques.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:08 AM on July 17, 2006

I agree with dirtynumb. I've seen this quite frequently. It's not really fraudulent, unless you're doing it to hide a lot of negative feedback on another account.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 9:42 AM on July 17, 2006

Think of it this way: say I sell shoes, my store is called "Saffron Shoes" and I want to expand to selling housewares. I could change the name to something more inclusive (Saffron Boutique) but confuse my shoe clientele, or open a new store specifically for housewares.

It sounds like your friend's music collector clients won't necessarily overlap with the antique collectors he/she is trying to attract, so using a new business name makes sense.
posted by saffron at 9:48 AM on July 17, 2006

You are allowed to have as many eBay usernames as you like. They have to have different e-mail addresses but all other info can be the same. They must not interact with each other (e.g. bid on each other's auctions or bid against each other).

I have seven eBay accounts. One is my primary selling account. I have a separate account for buying (for one thing, if I buy something that I resell on eBay, this prevents people from looking up how much I paid for it). Then I set up another account for buying gifts because friends and family knew what my other usernames were and I didn't want the to see what I was getting them. Then I set up another one to buy from a questionable seller because I didn't want him ruining my feedback, etc. I also have one that I use when I'm selling on behalf of other people, as it's different stuff than I usually sell and I know less about the things I'm selling. On my regular selling account I use a no-questions-asked full-refund returns policy. If I started selling some things "as is" (e.g. non-working electronics for parts) I would set up a separate account for that, as I would have a different returns policy (and this type of sale has a greater risk of negative feedback)
posted by winston at 10:34 AM on July 17, 2006

The new account will start with zero feedback so his reputation does not carry over and several eBay features will be unavailable.

But, he can always refer to the old account in the description while building FB.

PayPal will accept payments from the new account if he sets it up that way.

Some auction tracking software will handle multiple accounts.
posted by Fins at 10:59 AM on July 17, 2006