Open the seller's catalogue. Not the listing you came for, the whole catalogue. A legitimate seller's catalogue has a shape: a consistent category, a consistent price band, a consistent brand mix, and a history that goes back months. A counterfeit seller's catalogue has a different shape: thirty products across ten categories, all priced just low enough to be tempting, all listed within the last few weeks, and all from brands that have nothing to do with each other. The pattern is visible in the catalogue before any single product is examined, and the catalogue is the check most buyers never run.
The first tell is the spread. A real seller specializes, because inventory, suppliers, and expertise all push toward a niche. A counterfeit seller does not specialize, because the inventory is whatever was available to copy this week: a handbag, a pair of earbuds, a watch, a supplement, a pair of sunglasses. The spread is not a business. It is a dragnet, and the dragnet works because each listing only needs a few sales before the account is flagged and the next one is opened.
Check the seller's history, and check the dates. A catalogue where every listing appeared in the same week is a catalogue that was built in a hurry, and a hurry is a sign of an account that expects to be closed. A legitimate seller's listings accumulate over months, with reviews accumulating alongside them. A counterfeit seller's listings arrive in a batch, with few or no reviews, and the reviews that exist are either generic or clustered on the same dates. The seller feedback score, if the platform shows one, tells the same story: a new account with a perfect score and ten sales is not a good seller. It is a new account.
The third tell is the price band. Every product in the catalogue is priced at roughly the same discount to retail, usually 60 to 80 percent off, regardless of the product. A real seller's prices vary with the product, the condition, and the market. A counterfeit seller's prices vary with nothing, because the price is not set by the market. It is set by the need to be cheap enough to attract a buyer and expensive enough to be worth the listing.
Do not buy from the catalogue, and do not buy the one listing that looks genuine. A catalogue full of fakes means the seller is not a seller. It is an operation, and the one genuine-looking product is the bait that makes the rest look legitimate. Report the seller, not the listing, and include the catalogue pattern in the report: the spread, the dates, the price band. A report against a listing gets a listing reviewed. A report against a seller, with the pattern documented, gets an account reviewed, and an account review is the one that removes thirty listings at once.
One fake listing is a listing. Thirty fake listings from one seller is the business, and the business is visible to anyone who opens the catalogue before they open their wallet.
Keep reading: The Seller's Catalogue Is the Tell: Reading a Whole Shop Before You Buy, Fake Designer Sunglasses: The UV Claim You Cannot Verify by Looking, and Spotting a Fake Watch: Weight, Dial Printing, and the Movement That Gives It Away cover the nearby cases in this series.
Look for a wide spread across unrelated categories, all listings appearing in the same few weeks, few or no reviews, and every product priced at roughly the same deep discount to retail.
Because the inventory is whatever was available to copy that week. A real seller specializes. A counterfeit seller runs a dragnet, and each listing only needs a few sales before the account is flagged.
Report the seller, and include the catalogue pattern in the report: the spread, the dates, and the price band. A seller report gets an account reviewed, which can remove thirty listings at once.
Not on its own. A new account with a perfect score and ten sales is a new account, not a good seller. Check the listing dates and the review history before trusting the score.