Using stock images on a new stealth account

[ozseller]

Hey all,

I'm making a few stealth accounts now, and prior to my suspension I did quite a high volume in sales ($18,000+ per month), selling mobile/smartwatch accessories.

I saw some posts saying you should never use stock photos, take your own pictures, and remove EXIF data etc, but the only thing is taking pictures of the product would seem less 'professional', every other seller uses good looking renders of the product and adds text and stuff to the listing image.

(Just go onto eBay and search up "iPhone case", every professional high volume seller uses good looking images, not something they took on their phone at home)

I'm wondering if I can use stock photos without getting suspended, and when to start since the account is new.

Any help is appreciated! Thank you

[ozseller]

To clarify, I'm not just taking the manufacturer's photos, we will add stuff like the Australia Post logo, etc. and make a unique listing cover image that has not been used on any previous eBay accounts.

All products are unbranded, if that changes things. See attached photo for an example of what I mean.

[degsey69]

If you want to use stock images put a banner on the page like “best value” etc and if you use something like paint.net the metadata from the original image is deleted when you save the new one with the banner. The reason why I say put a banner on the image as the image owners use companies who scan for their images and report you to eBay if they find copyrighted images, the banner confuses the bots that crawl over eBays server. They will even find images on sold listings not visible to regular search.

Also eBay will check images on a new account to see if they are linked to previously shut down accounts, putting a banner on the image covers that as well.

[ozseller]

Originally Posted by degsey69

If you want to use stock images put a banner on the page like “best value” etc and if you use something like paint.net the metadata from the original image is deleted when you save the new one with the banner. The reason why I say put a banner on the image as the image owners use companies who scan for their images and report you to eBay if they find copyrighted images, the banner confuses the bots that crawl over eBays server. They will even find images on sold listings not visible to regular search.

Also eBay will check images on a new account to see if they are linked to previously shut down accounts, putting a banner on the image covers that as well.

I appreciate the reply. I am working closely with the manufacturer/supplier of these products, and they are unbranded, so no VeRO.

We will for sure be making sure that the picture is different to the one we used on a suspended account, but I just wanted to make sure that we could design something in Photoshop that looks professional, rather than a picture of the product taken in our warehouse on an iPhone camera.

Thank you for your input, I'll be treading carefully when listing on this new account.

[rsot]

Add your own watermark/stamp as well