Listing Errors, trademark violation Paolo Gucci

[gdiesel70]

I go to list a beautiful pair of vintage Paolo Gucci earrings and eBay is blocking me from publishing the listing unless I remove all instances of “Gucci”.

 

The thing is, Paolo Gucci is its own brand. It’s not a trademark violation.  I’m using the correct brand name to accurately describe the item.  In fact, Paolo sued the Gucci design house and won the right to use the Paolo Gucci name for his designs…so no, eBay, it’s not a violation of the Lanham Act unless the name “Paolo” is omitted.

Asking me to omit the brand name from the title and description would not only be false advertising, but also make the item extremely difficult to sell.

This is the second time in a month this has happened. I’d love it if someone from eBay could explain why I can’t list these when there’s currently 201 listings for Paolo Gucci earrings on eBay (with 99 sold). They’re selling like hotcakes, so there’s definitely a demand. I just want eBay to quit 🐓blocking so I can sell my hotcakes too.

3 weeks ago the eBay police-bots mistakenly  flagged a wood Gerda Lynggaard bracelet as ivory and removed the listing. Now I have two quality items that I’m unable to list here because of hypervigilant bots.

[powell-memorabilia]

“Paolo” is the brand.  There is no “Paolo Gucci” brand.  That is why every Paolo can only use “Gucci” when stating “designed by Paolo Gucci.”

[gdiesel70]

Yes, “designed by”. 
Though eBay item specifics does have “Paolo Gucci” catalogued as its own brand. 

[gdiesel70]

 

Someone recognizes it as a brand. 

[12345jamesstamps]

I would think those who buy bags like these can spot them without a brand name. You be surprised how smart buyers are and just by looking at a few photos they know what it is.

[gdiesel70]

Sure. 
That handbag listing isn’t mine, btw. It’s just a random example I found. Hundreds of sellers are using the name in text and title, eBay doesn’t seem to care about the semantics for those. 

How do I move  a pair of gold-tone faux pearl clip-on earrings when search delivers 13,000+ listings for that term, and 18 results when narrowed down to paolo gucci? 

Hoping a buyer spots my listing in the haystack of other earrings is about as good a strategy as using “REDUCED! WOW! LQQK! STUNNING” in the title.
 I’m just trying to sell earrings and the best way to move them quickly is with accurate identifiers so buyers can find it. This brand has a fast sell-through rate, so an accurate description along with a good price should  move it quickly.  Without that,  it’ll just sit in my store for years. 

[pjcdn2005]

Most of those earring listings use the word vintage and are in the vintage jewelry category.  Have you tried that?

[fashunu4eeuh]

Sadly, once you are on eBay’s radar, it seems the bots are more apt to remove perceived violations. And multiple policy violations have a cumulative effect on an account as the penalties get steeper.

This is why i would never advise someone to relist even when eBay removed a listing in error. The risk of another removal is too great, followed by a more serious suspension.

[albertabrightalberta]

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@powell-memorabilia wrote:

“Paolo” is the brand.  There is no “Paolo Gucci” brand.  That is why every Paolo can only use “Gucci” when stating “designed by Paolo Gucci.”

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Paolo isn't the brand. Paolo is the designer's first name, Gucci is the designer's surname.  And the brand name IS "Paolo Gucci." 

If an item is "Paolo Gucci" is cannot be listed as "Gucci" but must include the first name. They're 2 different design houses.

[pjcdn2005]

Unless I am reading the op wrong, the listing was not posted and not removed by eBay. They received a warning during the listing process so it shouldn’t  do any harm in seeing if the same message comes up in a deferent category,

[mam98031]

Did you use both names when you tried to post it or only the one?

[gdiesel70]

Yes, the vintage jewelry category, the word ‘vintage’ was used  in title as well. 
No clue why eBay won’t let me list it.  

 

[gdiesel70]

Well that’s the problem. 
“Paolo+Gucci” is the brand and  unfortunately eBay is flagging me for the using the word Gucci altogether.  

and no, you can only select one brand in the jewelry category. If I chose Gucci, this would have no problem listing. Of course that’s also misuse and trademark violation so I won’t be doing that. I just want to know why eBay’s doing this to just my listing. Makes me wonder what’s going on behind the scenes like some sellers being on different servers or silos on the website snd each are manipulated accordingly.   

[lacemaker3 · Accepted solution]

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@gdiesel70 wrote:
...

3 weeks ago the eBay police-bots mistakenly  flagged a wood Gerda Lynggaard bracelet as ivory and removed the listing. Now I have two quality items that I’m unable to list here because of hypervigilant bots.

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@gdiesel70, this may be what is causing your problem, and if so, it is a restriction that eBay is applying to your account because of the "ivory" listing removal.

Several months ago, IIRC, there were several threads about sellers who had listings removed for violating the ivory prohibition, and afterwards were not permitted to use certain keywords in their titles for any of their listings. The list may or may not have been the same for every affected seller, but it included words like vintage, and carved, in addition to ivory.

We were able to find some of the removed listings in cached pages. In one case, the seller had used keywords that were only relevant to items made out of ivory, so it appeared that they were trying to sell an actual ivory item, but listing it as bone. (Or, possibly, they didn't understand what the ivory keywords meant, because they appeared to be copied from text about ivory netsukes that was available online.) In other listings, that did not appear to be the case. Some of the sellers were told, like you, that they could relist the items, but I believe they were removed again and the sellers were restricted again. So it's good that you did not relist the items.

I don't recall if there was ever an acknowledgement from the eBay blues about this. Maybe someone else will remember.

Unfortunately, I believe the only thing the sellers were able to do was to list without using the keywords that were blocked for them. Even though other sellers were allowed to use those keywords.

You should try revising your title and remove the word "vintage", see if you can list the Paolo Gucci bag then. Try putting the year or decade it was made instead. Please let us know if that works.

[lacemaker3]

Too late to edit:  OK, it was almost a year ago:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Be-careful-what-you-post-and-don-t-complain-to-ebay-or-they-wi...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Cannot-Use-Vintage-or-Antique-in-Title-Get-Error-Msg-Violated/...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/ebay-won-t-let-me-use-the-word-ANTIQUE/m-p/33158999?search-act...