Clear knock-offs may be destroyed to avoid litigation. However my (half-joking) endless cycle scenario does math out if:
Filing counterfeit claims is a way to control authorized retail sales
In the case of OP (with the most favorable assumption), the items are genuine
Amazon lies a lot
Interestingly to be part of Project Zero, you have to be brand registered and have >90% counterfeit claim success over a period of time. They encourage filing those claims.
There are levels of counterfeit claims, including test buys and showing Amazon a side by side comparison versus simply filing a claim assuming the seller won’t have an authorized paper trail (which is what OP is opening themselves up to).
I wonder the criteria by which items end up in these three categories.
Quite often those claims by manufacturers are “may be inauthentic” which Amazon translates to are counterfeit, when the seller is unable to produce acceptable invoices.
Items of indeterminate origin are not welcome on Amazon.
Thank you. I appreciate all the answers of everyone in this forum as well. It would be very cool if one day we could all meet in person like another real estate forum that I frequently engage. They have annual meeting (ok I don’t go every year) and inviting interesting speakers to the event. It’s fun to see people that we chat online with age
I would like to add that Walmart also violates MAP. I just found out that Walmart was selling the same the product that the brand owner is having problem with me at way lower price than MAP.
Sorry for disappearing for days. Thanks for this great theory. I was wondering why bother with the MAP now. I have a tool that showed me people who have won the buy box in the past. Walmart was one of them. They too sold at way lower price than MAP since last year on walmart.com
No, it’s not a loser. I’m selling it 1 or 2 pieces a day which is very good for walmart.com platform. The MAP is $110 (yeah nobody buys at that price) and I’m selling around $60. At this price the product moves off the shelves.
Agree. The problem of this product is that their MAP is too high. The brand and product quality is good, but they price it wrong. Too many Chinese brands selling at lower price steal their sales. I had to drop the price to be around the level as other Chinese brands to move the product.
In fact, Walmart sold this product in the past at around $60 (same price that I’m selling now) and sold out. There are a few sellers left who are selling below MAP. I’m monitoring them to see how the brand owners deal with them. If nothing happen in 6 months, I think it would be safe to go back to sell my inventory.
The first sale doctrine basically states that you can sell a product YOU OWN, as long as it’s not counterfeit and no modifications. Once YOU OWN a product, is no longer new, but PRE-OWNED. You can sell whatever you want under the first sale doctrine, just not as “new”.
Do resellers like us count as “own” the products? We’re more like a middle man. The word “pre-own” was a new way to say “used”. Goods under the control of resellers aren’t considered “used” items.
