MC011 Restriction and Realistic Expectations

[duneanemporium]

Hey folks! We recently got an MC011 restriction on my eBay account and are seeing the horror stories of folks doing some... interesting... things to get this restriction, and just wanted to get some feedback from the community on their experience with the MC011 restriction (What brought on the restriction? Did you get the restriction lifted, and if so, how long did it take? etc) as well as any eyes the eBay selling community might be able to put on my Sold Listings to get some opinions here on whether they think we have a shot at getting the restriction lifted or if it's just sayonara to selling on eBay. We are resellers of high demand items like video game consoles, sneakers, clothing and collectibles, with a massive emphasis on sneaker reselling. We don't attempt to hide our business model -- we are resellers through and through, and we know there are varying opinions on this business model on eBay, which we can totally understand (no hard feelings, promise!) -- but so far as we can tell through the policies, our selling performance and feedback as well as the handling of the few and far between disputes and claims/requests we receive from buyers, we have always tried to do our business on eBay with transparency, as much accuracy as possible, and we do our taxes honestly and completely just like any brick-and-mortar or ecommerce business would do on their own website or another platform.

So yeah, we'd love any and all feedback and insight/opinions on this! As openly honest resellers of mostly sneakers, is MC011 restrictions and ensuing account bans just part of the gig here on eBay, with nothing to be done about it though the policies don't seem to prohibit buying retail items and selling them for a profit? To be clear, we do not dropship -- everything comes to one of two locations for us on the east coast of the US and are all sold on eBay as either confirmed preorders or in hand listings. Selling on eBay is 100% of our business, we do not use other platforms or sell locally, only through our eBay store, so this is a restriction we are taking very seriously and want to do whatever is required and necessary (as we have already been working with eBay to do), but would love any community feedback or stories where you were able to get your restriction lifted, if you were able to do so, or any additional advice on how we can conduct our reselling business on eBay above board in ways that maybe we have missed or were not aware of over the last 4 years of selling (store selling anniversary coming up in May!)

Thanks everyone and happy selling!

[duneanemporium]

@wrong66 We realize we mistook your question in your original mesage, and didn't see this reply, but @a_c_green is correct -- this is when our listings were removed by eBay as part of the MC011 restriction.

[duneanemporium]

Thanks for your feedback on your experience! Looking at some of your feedback, it's clear we deal in very different products (though a very similar business model) -- we feel it's one thing for a buyer to mistake or get into a situation where the bought an iPhone they thought was unlocked but wasn't due to a technical misunderstanding in listing details vs someone buying a pair of sneakers for a 20% markup from the retail price. We will have very little trouble providing documentation of the receipts from these purchases, though receiving a verdict in your restriction case within a minute or less of submitting your documentation does seem to indicate that the documentation was not considered in the decision made by eBay to permanently suspend your account. 

Hopefully our situation does not turn out to be a similar experience!

[bashort]

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@wrong66 wrote:

In looking at your completed listings, every one I looked said "seller ended listing because item is no longer available". Is this normal?

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If you look at any sold listing it says that

[duneanemporium]

@wrong66 @bashort We should probably also note, since not too long after we began selling on eBay we have been managing our listings to persist once sold out (as we often get in more pairs of sneakers which we have already created listings for, and just replenish stock of certain sizes that we have available again, plus this saves us the time needed to properly recreate the listing), and so far the only way we see to end the listing once we are officially sold out and go to remove it from our Active Listings page is to edit the listing, choose to end the listing, and put the reason as "Item is no longer available" because it's actually no longer available.

[ckimodog]

From reading all your very respectful, professional replies to your post,  I hope you are able to salvage your account and get back on track.  My only concern (and no disrespect) is how credible are your vendors and suppliers? In the past I have read about warehouses being cleaned out by thieves, only to unload the items on the internet for a fast profit.  Trust me it's out there.  If you have all your receipts as you stated, then all should be good and a good outcome on your behalf.  Best of luck to you. 

[kcvalue]

I hope not for you. 

[duneanemporium]

Thanks very much for the kind words and well wishes! We hope the same for obvious reasons!

Regarding your question about the reputable nature of our supplies -- we only buy from authorized retailers, and by that we mean only the ones that Nike, adidas, new balance, among other worldwide and well-known brands, work with, like brick and mortar stores like Footlocker brand stores (Champs, Footaction, Kids Footlocker) and their websites, adidas.com/Yeezy Supply.com and Nike.com/SNKRS (so the manufacturer directly in those four instances). The retailers we buy from are the big-named companies, not the "authorized resellers" of these products like you see from franchised Verizon Wireless retailers or similar that are owned by someone local or national who runs a chain of franchise stores. These retailers have massive contracts to buy products wholesale from the manufacturer's directly, or are the manufacturer's themselves under other brands (such as Yeezy Supply or SNKRS, both owned by adidas and Nike, respectively). It does not get much more reputable than that if you ask us!

[duneanemporium]

Thanks for the response! We're not sure if this was meant to be a hope for us to not get permanently suspended or for the reverse, but if the former then we hope not as well for our sake! We've worked hard to make our selling on eBay a legitimate business and it has proven to be a lot of legwork to make things operate smoothly and to treat out customers well and provide them with good customer service and a quality product, and we look forward to the chance to be able to continue this for years to come! If the latter, no hard feelings! We're curious if you could elaborate on your response if you are hoping we do find ourselves permanently suspended?

[duneanemporium]

In re-reading more carefully and understanding that you were responding to a previous message of ours, we certainly hope not as well!

[wrong66]

You don't do drop shipping, do you?

[duneanemporium]

No -- while we don't condemn those who dropship (it's a fantastic business model when done well in our opinion), we want absolute control over the fulfillment of our products. When a third party is fulfilling your orders for you, you are at the mercy of their lead times, any delays in fulfillment beyond your control, their packing and shipping practices when it comes to packaging, protective packing supples, etc--it's way too much to consider and trust another party to handle when we could do it all ourselves and happily provide those services free of charge. We do not charge shipping on eBay for the very reason that it's just expected in the age of Amazon and other large distribution-style fulfillment center, and in our opinion just good customer service to provide a quality packing and unboxing experience when you have given your customers piece of mind that the condition their order arrives in was packed well and with care. We have all gotten the Amazon or whoever retailer's box with so much dead space in the packing and the one piece of packing paper that it can barely constitute as careful packing and handling, and we cannot stand this and work very hard to provide adequate packing materials and box sizing that fit the product to ensure safe transit with the carrier all the way to delivery. We would be surprised is more than 50% of all eBay sellers do any packing materials at all in their shipments, let alone the extent that we provide in our packaging of our products. We will never, ever dropship, though we will frequently reuse other retailer boxes, because that's just working smart, not harder, with purpose!

[duneanemporium]

Just to continue our experience -- we just received a request from eBay to provide our proof of identity, address, and ownership of the items you listed on eBay in the form of invoices and receipts. We are putting these documents together for eBay now and will report back with the results of eBay's review once we have it!

[downunder-61]

Your inventory is mainly high end brand name sneakers? 

The name Yeezy has been causing a few issues on these boards lately, with regard to the authenticity of these products.

Not aimed at you obviously, but other sellers have had issues with Yeezy's they believed were 100% authentic only to find out after sale that they were not and being faced with returns and or failed authentications.

This could have something to do with it eBay requesting all this proof, they are perhaps looking further into the Yeezy issues?

[714ricki]

The MC011 definitely stings. The best advice would be to carefully/truthfully respond back to the ebay message & provide them the requested information in a timely manner. Please keep in mind that the ebay response time could take 72 hours from the time you submit the response. Therefore, submit your response at the earliest. In the meantime, make sure any & all recent orders have tracking numbers & proof of delivery. If your account is reinstated, then prepare for some temporary seller restrictions. However, you can worry about that later. First step is to carefully respond back to ebay & make sure everything has tracking & proof of delivery.

Good luck!

[duneanemporium]

We definitely can understand this and share the same concerns as our buyers and others in this market -- we do after all enjoy collecting and wearing the products as much as we enjoy selling them!

In regards to the concerns with Yeezys and the counterfeits, in all of our years of collecting (which extend beyond on eBay sales) and in turn our selling experiences, there seem to be a lot of misconceptions about where Yeezy products are produced throughout the world -- many products now come from countries like India, Vietnam, and even in Germany. China is not the only country where textile and clothing manufacturing happens in 2022, and it's unfortunate to watch YouTube videos and read articles all over a Google search stating if an adidas Yeezy product doesn't have the "Made In China" tag, it's without question a fake or counterfeit copy. We do not shy away from these questions and concerns as sellers either, and with eBay's Authenticity Guaranteed program, the entirety of the authentication is handled by experts who carefully inspect and verify that products sold through their program not only match the descriptions in the seller's listing, but are authentic, real versions of what the buyer wants, not some knock-off or cheap counterfeit. The Authenticity Guaranteed platform brings much needed confidence for the buyer to get a genuine product, but also brings a much needed boost in confidence for the seller to not receive claims that the Yeezys they sourced directly from adidas are fake, with no verifiable information to back up the claim. Before Authenticity Guaranteed, it was just as risky for a seller to sell sneakers on eBay as it was for a buyer to buy them, but now both parties can rest easy in regards to authenticity! It's a win-win for everyone in the transaction.