@dotswholesale wrote:
You know I tried and tried to figure out how my competitors might possibly have 50 or more of a particular seiko watch. I looked researched asked seiko and finally figured it out. The answer is they don't have them instead they have clones. There is no way to get 50 or more seiko or bulova or any other high end watch and sell them at prices they are. If a reseller offers 50 seiko watches all identical in 100 % of the cases they are fake. You can buy wholesale lots but they are like 1 to 5 of each watch type not 50 or more. I will be buying these fakes and exposing the sellers to ebay.
There are copied products all over the Internet and its a big problem governments and sites are trying to address. Amazon was recently cited as the literal poster boy of counterfeits online inside a congressional committee meeting which spread through DC like a wildfire. eBay is quite pro-active in trying to prevent such things having removed some 88 million listings in the past year. A problem here is the actual manufacturers of products for the most part refuse to share the information on how to spot counterfeit products so as eBay can act accordingly. The manufacturers cite that they dont trust "marketplaces" with the various information(s) in engineering data etc so as the marketplaces can develop AI software to better deal with the problem. Instead, there are external firms that manufacturers use that also represent the manufacturers that they do share that data with.
Well you can now see the problem much clearer.
These manufacturers if they were to share the data which is what they should do basically means those contracted firms who represent said manufacturers be out of jobs.
Additionally in the marketplaces being more capable and proactive in having those capabilities does not service their business models. Seiko doesn't want you selling their new/pre-owned watches unless you are an authorized reseller and that means you pay them to be one and they make money on what you sell. Seiko wants to sell people new watches and make money. Just as Rolex doesnt like either independent folks selling their watches and they've been counterfeited before the World Wide Web ever existed.
There are far less manufacturers who "Like" open marketplaces online or off for that matter than are "ok with it" and that stands true with distributors and retailers as well.
One might say in a way, counterfeits also service manufacturers, distributors and retailers wants in strictly regulating internet commerce. That is to say, they'd rather see it be destroyed, cease to exist be that here, Amazon third party, Mercari, Craiglist, FB Marketplace on and on than enter into proper protective arrangements with said entities to protect both their intellectual properties, rights and consumers. It doesn't serve them to do that, Coach would much rather ladies buy new expensive Hand Bags than buying genuine pre-owned ones online. Netgear would much prefer you buy a router at Best Buy than buy a pre-owned or last edition model new even from here that Poppa selling because his Cable provider gave him one in a new contract.
What should be happened is all parties of interest should be working together. So when Seiko delists handfuls of watches in favor of new models they should become available to third party sellers under license to resell. Coach purses should go through Coach for authentication and a revenue share model so all parties are properly satisfied. Its mutually beneficial relationships that solve problems not adversarial ones but adversarial at least presently serves manufacturers, distributors and retailers as they seek to hold the marketplaces accountable to what sellers do on them.
Now all that said... eBay is not some GIGANTIC company albeit sellers seem think it is! eBay US has about 11,500 employee's globally of which 6000 some odd last I knew work in the USA. Now compare that lets say to Eastman Kodak Company which once was a GIANT in imaging and photography. Kodak once employed over 145,000 people and now is about 4200. General Motors has some 167,000 employee's, Amazon has some 1.5 Million employees, Etsy about 1800. Our local school district has some 14,000 thereabouts students with a staff in excess of 3700 employees. So you can clearly see eBay is no giant as folks like to think it is.
eBay has some 18 MILLION seller accounts and over 1.7 BILLION listings with a US staff of 6,000 some odd people and as I noted, they removed 88 Million listings last year, that's 241,000 every single day, 365 days a year.
Point being eBay is a venue, a pro-active one in trying to deal with many many many issues caused by sellers and buyers. eBay would like nothing better than for every single item sold to be the real deal, legitimate and transactions go smooth as silk but that's not the reality. The reality is there are bad sellers and buyers who take advantage of the open environment damaging all parties concerned.
