One thing that stands out the most in dropshipping is its scalability. Since the expenses are significantly lower than brick-and-mortar stores, it’s much easier to open more stores and scale. Plus, the platform allows us to can create multiple eBay accounts.
But, there’s a lot more to it than that. Because having more than one store doesn’t necessarily mean that we will generate more sales and profit. In this case, timing and management will draw the line between success and failure.
Are multiple stores the right approach for our business model? If so, when is the right time to do it? What are the best strategies to use? All of our questions will be answered in this article, where we will learn everything there is to know about managing multiple eBay stores.
eBay Account Safety: Everything You Need To Know
First and foremost, it is wise to know how eBay sees and regulates sellers with multiple eBay accounts. This way, we will keep our accounts safe from unnecessary trouble leading to account suspension. After all, this is our asset, and we must protect it by all means.
Essentially, Linked Accounts and Duplicate Listings are two subjects that we need to know about to keep our multiple seller accounts safe. Let’s break down what they are and how to work with them.
eBay Linked Accounts
When creating multiple eBay accounts under the same names and addresses, the supplier will link the accounts together. Meaning, for any reason, if one of the accounts gets a suspension – the rest of the accounts will go down with it, just like the domino effect. Therefore, it is crucial to keep each seller account in check.
Maintaining a healthy seller account status is mainly based on correctly handling customer inquiries, cases, and returns. Remember that customer satisfaction is the number one factor for the survivability of your seller accounts. Thus, remember to treat it like the real business that it is.
Keep in mind that eBay links all of the accounts under the same WiFi connection. In other words, every computer in the same household is linked to one another. So if we live with our family or roommates who are also sellers, make sure that they are aware of the boundaries for everyone’s benefit.
eBay Duplicate Listings
Ultimately, finding our winning products is one of the keys to dropshipping success. And since eBay is a keyword marketplace, many try to multiply their success by uploading the same product more than once. Each time with a different title to gain more presence on eBay’s search engine. Sooner or later, eBay’s algorithm catches on and takes action.
It doesn’t matter if duplicate products exist in the same store or spread throughout multiple stores. Since all of the accounts are linked together, eBay sees it as one big store.
Therefore, refrain from uploading the same item more than once. There are more than enough ways to increase our dropshipping profits without taking unnecessary risks.
Either way, AutoDS will protect us from adding duplicate listings on one or multiple stores. So, we don’t have to worry about it happening by accident, and our seller accounts will remain protected.
Can You Have Multiple eBay Accounts & Is It A Good Idea?
If our timing and management skills are on point, the answer is yes. The biggest advantage of growing multiple eBay accounts is the ability to test different marketing strategies or split testing.
Meaning, each store will test a different marketing strategy. After collecting enough data, we’ll know exactly which aspects we need to scale to optimize our stores.
For example, one store can implement the Big Numbers Rule strategy, bulk listing as many hot-selling products as possible. This proven strategy helps gather maximum data for product research. Also, it’s the most cost-effective method since we’re paying much less for each listing on an Anchor store subscription.
The second store can test optimized listings. Optimize the titles, descriptions, pictures, etc. Obviously, this strategy requires more work for each listing. So, if we don’t have spare time – consider hiring a Virtual Assistant to help automate the business.
After testing with the first two stores, the third store can test a specific niche. Or, a specific supplier with whom we have a lot of mutual sales. At this point, we should start generating new ideas with the testing experience we have from the first two stores.
Remember – each strategy takes time and patience to gather data and results. Each testing phase should take at least 1 full month of testing, if not 2. The more work you put into the testing phase, the better the results.
Take Lior Pozin (AutoDS CEO), for example, with 35 different eBay accounts. After much experimenting throughout the years, he decided to go with the Big Numbers Rule strategy on each of his 35 eBay stores. Today, some of his stores search for new niches while the rest collect their fruits on proven methods after intensive testing.
Increase Selling Limits With Multiple eBay Stores
One of the challenges when opening multiple eBay accounts is the limits. Primarily, there are five ways to increase our eBay selling limits:
- Automatic Method
- Contact eBay via Phone
- Request To List More
- Contact eBay via Email
- Contact eBay via Chat
Let’s take, for example, requesting a selling limit increase via phone. When doing so, we have to call eBay and ask them to increase our selling limits.
After going through a quick verification process, let them know that this is not our first store and that we already have experience selling on eBay. If they ask why we’re opening another store, explain that we are testing new marketing methods or a new niche that can’t be combined with the first store.
And that’s all there is to it! Request to start with as many listings as possible. They will check your linked store’s status. Once they see that your seller account is healthy and that you know what you are doing, you will start with much higher limits and get to work immediately.
When Is It A Good Time To Create Additional eBay Stores?
When opening multiple eBay accounts, scaling is important – but so is timing. Likewise, knowing the right time to add an additional store is crucial to their success. First, wait until we start generating enough profit from our first store before considering opening an additional store.
After all, we already mastered the basic arts of dropshipping by:
- Hiring a VA to automate our daily tasks, freeing us to invest our time in growing.
- Our store is already customer-oriented by sending automated messages to our buyers, further enhancing customer support.
- We bookmarked our 42 Pre-Made Professional Replies for our buyers. Plus, let’s not forget the 3 Post-sale Professional Messages.
Moreover, having a few hundred listings is not enough. So, our store must be optimized with at least several thousand products (if not more). Once we generate decent sales and profit, we will be ready to open another store.
Furthermore, every eBay store should generate around $1000 profit per month with an estimated 10,000 listings. Therefore, to make around $10,000 profit per month, we need to have 10 stores with 10,000 listings per store. With these figures, there’s no better time to create multiple eBay accounts than now.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many eBay Accounts Can I Have?
You can create multiple eBay accounts. As long as you can implement the right strategies and sell in-demand products, managing several accounts will help optimize your dropshipping profits.
Is It Possible To Have 2 eBay Accounts With The Same Bank Account?
Yes, you can link the same bank account to multiple eBay accounts. When doing so, ensure you adhere to eBay’s guidelines on bank account linking.
How Does eBay Detect Multiple Accounts?
The platform detects multiple eBay accounts with the same name, address, contact details, and more. Similarly, eBay links multiple accounts that use the same WiFi connection.
Conclusion
To summarize, growing multiple eBay accounts is definitely a good idea for those who want to hit the big numbers dropshipping. Notably, each store serves its own target market, research purpose, and marketing strategies. When these aspects are optimized, it’s only a matter of time before we start multiplying our profits.
Remember that patience is the key to strategy & research. Thus, we should give our stores enough time (at least one month) to gather enough data before deciding. The more we test, the more we will surprise ourselves with the results, and the sooner we can start to scale!
With that said, there’s no better time to establish multiple eBay stores than now. So, explore more insights about selling on eBay by reading these helpful guides:
