The Tom in this picture looks like the real Tom from the game. If it were a friend no matter how they crop the picture it would always show a yellow, blue or green frame around the avatar picture just lie the other friend buying stuff in the example screenshot
^^ True story, thank you!
What this does is it opens up your box in the shop to put something (else) new up for sale. If Tom or Greg would not eventually buy the items players could get stuck sitting there with items in their shop they can never sell.

