Hidiho!
My name is Danny, I'm very Dutch and been a stealth Ebayer for 3 months now.
Being a devoted Catholic and regular chinese food eater I thought; why not share some of my experiences with you all. You don't have to make the mistakes I did right.
The 10 commandments for
eBay Stealth; let's go.
Rule nr. 1: THOU SHALT NOT DISPAIR.
Ebay kicked you off? Pick a number. You are finding yourelf in a large pool of sobbing dispair, accompanied by thousands. When you are being kicked off, it hurts. Go get your favorite Ben n Jerries icecream (I picked rocky road for my time of grief) and eat the whole thing in 12 minutes or less. After this thou shalt feel better. (anything with large amounts of chocolate will do too)
Rule nr. 2: THOU SHALT REJOICE
Icecream finished, brainfrosted and asperine at hand. Fabulous, you have gratudated to Rooky stage.
Rejoice in Ebay, because even though you could bomb their headquarters right now, hope is litteraly 72 hours away. There is an tremendous offer of
eBay Stealth stores just waiting for you to get back into action.
Rule nr. 3. THOU SHALT NOT ANNOY EBAY
You got kicked off eventhough you have 6000+ positive feedback? (really happens, read some forums) Did Ebay smack you in the face for a reason you don't understand? Unless you had a gigantic store and making a permanent living off off it, in gerneral (does not always apply) don't bother to email Ebay. When I got shunned I was celebarting my wonderful sales in Las Vegas. While my 21 was being busted by another dealer blackjack, this message pops up in my phone.
"Item removed from Ebay: 2300."
If it wasn't for the fact that a 400 pound waitress was standing next to me to suffer the blow, I might not have been able to tell the tale.
Franticly I stormed into my room to email Ebay. Long stuff short: you might as well talk to the hand, cause Ebay don't care.
Reason: there was a strike on in Germany postal services at the time.
1 customer had placed 8 different - seperate - (!) orders over a 2 week period. The customer had to wait too long and gave me 8 times negative feedback.
In the real world, you are actually allowed to make mistakes, but Ebay will chop you head off and will laugh while doing it. Ok I'm calm now.
Bottomline: don't rely on Ebay too much too settle your case.
If the Ebay parameters say 'no good' it's a lost case basically.
Rule #4, THOU SHALT DO RESEARCH
You are now ready to start again. Do not remove any inventory from your attacked account, we will need it again.
You go to Google and type in '
eBay Stealth' which will always prompt you to Aspkin in all cases as a top 3 result. It's becasue they're good.
Here you find a large selection of extremely catholic, law obiding chinese food lovers that sell
eBay Stealth stores.Check their feedback and you know exactly what you're dealing with. Go and start a conversation with one that you feel is the most appropriate for you. Get a feel for the response rate and general type of response.
Is the person fast? That important because now you're running out of icecream and need to get back up and running.
Good feedback? Pricing? What payment does he offer (some only accept bitcoin) do they have a website too? Only accepting WesternUnion? not good.
Know your stuff before making any commitment, this should only take a few hours, use common sense. Offer too good to be true? Move on, there's lots on offer.
RULE #5 THOU ARE CERTAINLY GOING TO BUY A STEALTH STORE
Well done, you have made a wise decision, you're at stage 'Novice' my friend. Make a descision what store is applicable for you. Want to get high volume? Get a 1000 items store. Start slow? Get one with only 10 items.
Bare in mind that a 10 item store can take a very long time (obviously) to get a good reputation. Ebay will increase your sales on all accounts over time, but with 10 items this can take well over a year, unless you are doing auction style only.
Things to bare in mind
- All stores on offer still have the 21 day delay on PayPal releasing funds.
Keep some money in your pocket, as you will have to wait for the funds to be released.
- Make sure you pick a store with EVERYTHING VERIFIED. Oh brother is this important!
When you are a novice, you don't want to mess around with paperwork yourself, which is giving you a real chance of some s*cumbag d*ouceb*g low life middle aged overweight smelly sock eating Ok I'm calm now.
Bottomline: the guys here know their stuff, let them handle it. Do not mess around trying to invent the wheel again. The work is already done for you.
Make sure everyting is
VERIFIED - PayPal and Ebay.
- IP. Make sure to ONLY use a
Dedicated IP adress. Do not ever in any case, I don't care what you grandma says use a random (oftentimes free) IP generator. You IP is being shuffeled and changed everytime you log into you new account. Ebay isnt stupid (in some areas), you will get banned within 3 weeks. DEDICATED IPS ONLY my precious.
Just type in online '
Dedicated IP' - about 12 gazillion search results should come you way. Never pay more than 20 buck a month, you can get them as low as 5 buck. No sweat.
RULE #6 CHECKLISTING THOU SHALT
- Everything verified PayPal and Ebay store?
- IP adress dedicated?
- Did you create a new account on your computer?
Example: do not use your own computer account, create a brand new one on your device. This is for cookies. You can create as many as you want.
Just for good measure, remove ALL cookies/history/all files that contain 'Ebay' Also Ebay TurboLister.
If Ebay picks up that you are using a stealth account but is finding old chocolate chip cookies on your computer, you're toast. But you are using a new account, so you are good. But just for good measure, in case you do login to your old account, remove all just to be sure.
RULE#6 CHILLING THOU SHALT
When you get your new account, you want to spend the next 48 hours with blood drenched eyes posting as much of you stuff as you can.
Don't my lovelies.
- The 1st item you post is a LOW RISK item. A book, eyeliner , a used toiletrole.
Ebay will manually check your first item. If you start off by putting your band new Iphone in the box new with tags, you're out. No high priced item, no well known brands, no phones or any electronics for that matter. Make it used and make a real picture of it. Do not snatch something off Google, even that Ebay can tell sometimes.
Write the description of your item like a 5 year old. The sillier the better.
Don't try to come across as a multinational doing business in 5 continents.
You are Betty McWaffles and just want to sell your petrock for 5 bucks.
Sell it or don't, it doesnt matter. The point is that Ebay will establish you geolocation and browsing history for the first days.
Therefore you also are going to browse the first day at least.
Make Ebay known that you are highly interested in melon cutters, leather briefcases and that used toupet born by Dr Dré.
Point: browse the first day for anything low risk. Ebay needs to get new cookies from you in order to know what you are interested in.
RULE#7 there is no rule #7
RULE #8 THOU SHALT SPREAD RISK
You're taking it slow, weither youre back up as a professional seller or occasional one.
If you want to push a lot of good (I sell over 5000 item at this point) you do NOT put everything in 1 store.
Spread the risk! Ow yes, spread em!
Put 300 items (depending on your needs) in one store, and 200 in another.
Yes, it does take an investment, but it's woth it. God forbid you get banned again, at least you have that other store going.
- TIPSY 1: something I did not know; cancelling a transacton for whatever reason counts heavily towards you grading.
I have to say without joking, Ebay's regulations are extremely tight. Error are being dealt with like....I can't think of a funny methaphore right now, but it's not pretty.
- TIPSY 2: sometimes you do get negative feedback, it happens to us all.
Solution: send an email that is dripping with apologies, sorrow and more apologies. And offer 2 buck if they are willing to chage the feedback. Works every time. You send them the Ebay form 'request feedback change' (you should be able to find it within the Ebay library within 60 minutes of searching) and send it to you for ever gratefull buyer.
TIPSY 3: When withdrawing funds from you account, always leave 10%.
God knows why (probably because they make interest on funds) but PayPal does not like it if you withdraw all of your funds 100% all of the time. Leave about 10% in your account at all times. This is also usefull for you, because you may have to repay a customer during you 21 days holding period and for many other reasons.
RULE #9 & 10: HAVE FUN!!
Your gloomy days are over, you are back in the saddle and you have wholehardedly forgiven Ebay for their lousy, moronic, low life, Ok im calm now. You have gratuted to 'super pro ebay-in-your-face dude'
You can be back in action with 3 days. No problem at all.
So buckle up, get to work and contact one of these highly professional good looking guys here for a store today.
Happy selling!!!