Would this work in practice?

[beneysz]

Wanted to quickly find out whether anyone has experience using lots of secondary stealth ebay and pp accounts to buy up their own stuff to rank?

Asking because this is a technique many Chinese sellers are using to stay ahead of the competition as "shill buying" appears to be quite a common thing on chinese ecom platforms and they appear to be doing the same thing here now also. Obviously their game is more sophisticated as they have professional companies with employees that sit there doing this all day long.

Just wondering if this would actually work in practice, assuming you had different accounts, ip addresses etc. If so how many accounts do you think you would need to actually keep it going long-term without raising any flags?

[MM78]

You mean giving yourself feedback.....
Can it work? Yes
Can you get Linked if not done right? Yes
How many accounts will it require? As many as you see fit

Question: Are you willing to take the risk knowing your account may be limited IF not done right?

[beneysz]

Thanks for the reply, not really feedback just literally a sale.

When you say done right, what needs to be done in theory apart from using different accounts, different windows users, different ip addresses?

[MM78]

Originally Posted by beneysz

When you say done right, what needs to be done in theory apart from using different accounts, different windows users, different ip addresses?

Yeah pretty much, also you should know that these guys aren't so much buying from themselves but selling to real customers at either break-even prices or to the point where they lose a little but gain a lot of sales and feedback.

[beneysz]

Yeh your probably right as i noticed all their sales come in at slightly below break even, but knowing the market its way too many sales for it to be genuine customers as opposed to shill buyers.

[MM78]

Originally Posted by beneysz

Yeh your probably right as i noticed all their sales come in at slightly below break even, but knowing the market its way too many sales for it to be genuine customers as opposed to shill buyers.

Why can't it be genuine customers? It could also be possible some are geniune and some are buying from themselves.

[beneysz]

Because we know the market quite well and have dropped prices to well below what they are selling for to see if we could get a sales spike and it didn't make a massive difference even at 30% below break even.

Also you can see the accounts used in their sales history there are many recurring user id's.

[MM78]

Originally Posted by beneysz

Because we know the market quite well and have dropped prices to well below what they are selling for to see if we could get a sales spike and it didn't make a massive difference even at 30% below break even.

Also you can see the accounts used in their sales history there are many recurring user id's.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were using a combination of different methods.

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by beneysz

Thanks for the reply, not really feedback just literally a sale.

When you say done right, what needs to be done in theory apart from using different accounts, different windows users, different ip addresses?

It is still not liked by eBay. If they work out what you are doing, then the accounts are compromised BIG TIME.
The poison word in your plan is SHILL bidding.
I am not comfortable in aiding anyone to commit to damage their accounts.

Best wishes.

[dallis]

These days, unless feedback is bad, nobody really cares all that much, partly for reasons like this.

I bet only 25% of my buyers leave any feedback at all, and no feedback counts as 100% positive.

[beneysz]

Originally Posted by GreenBean

It is still not liked by eBay. If they work out what you are doing, then the accounts are compromised BIG TIME.
The poison word in your plan is SHILL bidding.
I am not comfortable in aiding anyone to commit to damage their accounts.

Best wishes.

You are right, its defo a risky strategy. Perhaps its one thing Chinese sellers doing it using professional "Shill farms" who do this for a living, as opposed to independently trying to use 10-20 accounts and likely tripping yourself up by screwing up one small detail in the process.

[GreenBean]

My thoughts on setting up 10-20 accounts is to nurture these and make them earners for me.

That is what we do these days.

New accounts are for funding and expanding our business.

Back in the day, like prior to 2007, my partner used churn and burn. His record, if you call it that, was 17 UK accounts going in 36 hours.

It was hard to take as it meant the game had really changed. But to run an account, make money and beat eBay/PayPal is darn nice.

It is an interesting consideration as it allows options to be considered.

[rsot]

@beneysz, all the posts have pointed that this kind of activity is risky if not meticulously done. Make sure you know stealth very well if you choose to go this way.

[Kajunrook]

Dudes what he is saying is shill bidding with multiple stealth accounts to run the price up. Am I the only one that sees that?

[MM78]

Originally Posted by Kajunrook

Dudes what he is saying is shill bidding with multiple stealth accounts to run the price up. Am I the only one that sees that?

No, he wants to use stealth accounts to buy from his selling account(s) to get sales up or to make it look like he's selling a lot.

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by Kajunrook

Dudes what he is saying is shill bidding with multiple stealth accounts to run the price up. Am I the only one that sees that?

No, he wants to emulate Chinese activity with their selling accounts.

I mentioned ,I believe , this to come under shill bidding, and most troublesome in the eyes of eBay.

[NewYork]

Originally Posted by dallis

These days, unless feedback is bad, nobody really cares all that much, partly for reasons like this.

I bet only 25% of my buyers leave any feedback at all, and no feedback counts as 100% positive.

Is this true....? no feedback counts as 100% positive? It's the same as a 5 star rating if there's a completed sale but no feedback?

[rsot]

Originally Posted by NewYork

Is this true....? no feedback counts as 100% positive? It's the same as a 5 star rating if there's a completed sale but no feedback?

Think it's being misquoted here...

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by NewYork

Is this true....? no feedback counts as 100% positive? It's the same as a 5 star rating if there's a completed sale but no feedback?

Yes Sir.

If there is no feedback, how can you get dinged?

At the moment, you can not.

Sellers are actually moving away from chasing for feedback.

The wrong mark during the process of doing the feedback, can stuff everything up.

[GreenBean]

Couple of threads that will interest you, New York.

http://www.aspkin.com/forums/ebay-di...-feedback.html

http://www.aspkin.com/forums/subscri...tml#post820504

Yankee's comments are on the ball!!!

Hope these help.

[beneysz]

Not quite sure why the question turned into fabricated feedback, basically this article sums it up quite nicely:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonch.../#e96d1dc45b58

If you've often wondered why the chinese sellers are consistently dominating a particular niche its more than likely attributed to the "shilling" tactics used across their multiple seller accounts with duplicated listings.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by beneysz

If you've often wondered why the chinese sellers are consistently dominating a particular niche its more than likely attributed to the "shilling" tactics used across their multiple seller accounts with duplicated listings.

Possibly a bit but I think more sell cheap, free ship items that people buy and leave positive feedback. 100s of cheap, no cost-to-ship trinkets and trash for sale