I’m buying a product for retail price and reselling it on ebay for profit. is this illegal?
- March 3rd, 2010
- Posted in Small Business
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I’m buying a product online for retail price because they are having a special if I buy in bulk. I then sell this product individually for a small profit on ebay. I then get an email from the company asking me where I’m getting this product? After telling them I bought it directly from their website and reselling them, the person asks me not to sell it for under their retail price. Seems like anywhere I go, the price of this product remains consistently the same. Now because I am selling it for a lower price than everyone else, I have the edge. Now legally, can this company do anything to me? Is what I’m doing illegal? Can I continue doing this without the company giving me some lawsuit I just don’t need? Are there any special types of products where the company controls the market price? Any legal advice would be great?
As long as the product you sell is not a knock-off (an illegal or pirate copy of the product), there is nothing wrong in selling that product on e-bay. After that is what e-bay and similar C2C sites are about.
There may be copywriting issues, such as using their slogan, brand name, logo, etc in the description. Although most people will do this on ebay, it is technically illegal to publically use any of their copywritten material without permission so they could get you on this if they’re annoyed.
Just make sure you don’t use the retailers name, because if the manufacturers aren’t the ones with the problem you can use their brand names as much as you like.
If you’re buying at retail price how are you making a profit by selling under it?
Anyways, most manufacturers require people to have a wholesale contract with them before you can sell their items in bulk. I don’t know the laws on this and I’m sure they vary state to state.
You might want to look into it though. If the company decides to fight you, you could end up owing some serious money regardless of whether it’s illegal or not.
Big Company vs One Person = Bad Results
The best think you can do if you want to be on the safe side is to resale in open actions with low starting price -above the bulk and less then the retail- or sell on a BuyItNow with fixed price and Discount attached.This way you can defend your self.Anyway that company seems to have you on the blacklist better try another product.
Also are you sure the person you talk to was from the company and not some rival seller? If the retail price is declared as “SUGGESTED retail price” you are on the right side and that what you should answer