I came across an article from The Financial Times from London written by Syl Tang that appealed to my interest: Tiffany vs eBay
The article details the ongoing litigation battle between Tiffany and eBay. Tiffany is basically claiming that eBay is the reason why for the explosion of counterfeit Tiffany goods on the global world market.
After being sued by Louis Vuitton in 2006 and by many other luxury groups for similar reasons, eBay took some extra bold steps nearly 8 months ago to curb the illicit activity. They did so primarily by limiting sellers to listing only a certain amount of luxury items on eBay at a given time. Moreover, they placed new limit on cross-border sales, essentially cutting off certain parts of the world from selling to the U.S.. Those places tended to be the hotbed of the counterfeit trade. eBay also took it a step further by reviewing and verifying seller’s financial information to break apart any counterfeiting rings that may appear to be from legit accounts. But in the melee to please these luxury brands and their demands, eBay has canceled copious auctions that were in fact legitimate but have been reported by online eBay competitors as attempts to sell a counterfeits.
Purchasing online can be dangerous, especially when it comes to authenticity. On one hand, what would be the point for eBay to cancel almost all the auctions reported when some of these reports are in fact malicious and jealous eBay competitors? Is eBay afraid that one these report actually comes from big companies like LVMH or Tiffany and that if they don’t respond appropriately, essentially “shooting first and asking questions later” that they might end up getting sued ?
In her article Syl Tang says: “Guidelines on eBay’s Help section and postings by eBay’s staff make clear that eBay uses discretion in which sellers are removed and what auctions are shut down and that the rules are not transparent”.
The rules are basically up to eBay to make up willy-nilly and there’s nothing written in stone about how it’s supposed to be conducted, at least not to eBay members. What does that mean?Well, if tomorrow I wanted to sell all my handbag collections but I’m not a prestigious “Power Seller” I might very well have all my listings removed. And what would be eBay’s justification for that action: to be quite frank, none whatsoever.
Syl Tang pointed to real-case scenario where he writes about a seller that ran into the very same problem. The seller stated: “I put a real Louis Vuitton, in the original box, with photos showing it was genuine,” says one seller. “I was living in Paris and the morning after I listed, I had not responded in time to a Vuitton spotter on Texas time wanting me to prove it was real, and by the time I woke up, eBay had shut down the sale by the request of this spotter. I was outraged. Why do I have to answer to eBay?”
Syl’s example was to illustrate the point to which this has all boiled down to: other websites are doing what eBay can’t do. Take MyPoupette for example, who offers authentication services for Louis Vuitton products, which even LV is incapable of doing or condoning. MyPoupette is even as proactive as monitoring the Louis Vuitton fakes on eBay and reporting them where possible.
Prestigious reputable and legitimate eBay sellers such as Karen Kooper (KarenKooper.com) , Michael Sheldon (Portero.com) saw the traffic on their website grow as eBay starting to monitoring auctions on eBay. It’s true that Buyers that visit these sites can turn off their “fake detectors”.
Buyers wary of trying their luck on eBay turn to them and other sites to obtain the luxury goods with a sense of renewed confidence. It goes without saying that these sellers deserve their success in their domain because they resell only authentic luxury goods and offer a refreshing outlook to buying online.
While these sellers deserve their success in the domain of reselling only authentic luxury goods, By that same token, eBay, while it may have good intentions, should nonetheless not forget the average Joe that isn’t familiar with the new buying rules and help to foster a a more inviting and accepting selling site rather than make him the example of how stringent their new rules are.
I arrive at this question with an unclear answer before me.
Sadly the counterfeit problem is more complex and involves more than simple trademark violation issues. Behind the facade of sale of counterfeit goods on the streets are the dubious and seedy machinations that form a whole circuit of counterfeit goods smugglers, drug traffickers and even terrorists that depend on that revenue to advance other nefarious activities.
Michael Sheldon, chief executive of Portero, says: “eBay is . . . facilitating a bunch of sellers they can’t control. It’s so easy to put a photo of a real item and then sell a fake item. The eBay marketplace doesn’t work for luxury goods.”
So who can help? Why, eBay members can. Nope, sorry, that’s not a good idea either. Why you may ask? Well, it’s not to say that some eBay members aren’t knowledgeable in their luxury brands and can distinguish “fake from real” but rather the environment makes it possible for anyone to discredit an auction, if for their own personal amusement or gain. eBay is pure competition in action. Many similar items are posted all with variations of the same keywords. Type “Louis Vuitton Speedy 30” and you’ll hundreds of auctions for the same bag. Which leads me to my point about why members should not be the end all deciders about what is fake or real – eBay members can purposely flag an auction if they feel it encroaches against their own auction. Some members even bring down auctions from innocent and legitimate luxury resellers just so they can strike a deal off of eBay (which is a big no-no in the eBay world).
So what does Tiffany&Co. expect then? Moreover, what do all the other luxury brand groups such as Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy,, the Pinault Group, Cartier, Hermès, etc. expect from eBay, whose business practice is to offer a safe and secure conduit between buyer & seller and nothing more? Simply put: if those groups don’t invest in hiring their own staff to work closely with eBay to remove counterfeit auctions then they should expect nothing less than the status quo. You can’t make omelets if you don’t break a couple of eggs and these groups cannot impede the rights of others to do what they wish with their own personal property. And so with that in mind, if they want to change the scene that troubles them so much, then it is their duty to be as cooperative as possible with the conduit that is facilitating that traffic by giving them the resources that they need.
Syl Tang article on The Financial Times : Tiffany vs eBay
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