Company restricting the sales of their product on eBay

[cardiff-caravan-and-camping]

HI all, we are a small Ltd company that use EBay to sale parts for caravans. We have just received at letter from a company that produce some parts for the plumping trade outlet worldwide, that we sell on eBay and are now looking to restrict us from selling their products by the 1st of march 2025.  Furthermore, this company has threatening us that if we do not remove all the products made by them by the above date they will get our eBay account deactivated. 

The parts that we sell meet all of the eBay's policy requirements, we have removed all copyright names and logo's too the only thing in the adds are the photos of the products which are our own.  Are we still at risk of being deactivated if we do not stop selling the products in question.

The three reason why this company are saying that they are going ahead with this, is due to the following.

1. Protect brand integrity

2. Maintain quality standards

3. Support authorized retailers

what are your thoughts thank you

[jckl1957]

The members who reply in this forum are just other buyers and sellers like you.

This is way out of my own level of experience - I would suggest you need to take 'proper' advice outside of Ebay to see if this company are allowed to restrict your sales in this way.

My guess would be that they probably are.

Ebay's VERO programme allows a wide range of brands to restrict sales of their produts on the site.

Have you responded to the company to see if there is any way you could become an authorised dealer and sell with their consent?

[cardiff-caravan-and-camping]

Thank you for the replies, the company is saying that they have an authorised dealer on ebay. I will call them today and see what the response will be not holding out any hope here. Therefore I guess that we need to remove the product completely  from eBay if the answer is NO???

[jckl1957]

I would say so.

I think if you don't, they will either report your listings every time you post them or may take further action outside of Ebay.

However, as I said, this is assumption on my part.  I don't know for certain that either of those things would happen.

[red_magpie]

If you go to the VeRO link at the bottom of th page, somewhere in the guidance there is the option to see the full list of companies registered with VeRO, and exactly what the registration protects.

Most are simply to protect their copyright, but some also register their right to restrict sales to authorised distributors. If this is the case, I'm afraid that they're correct that if you continue to list their products, and they continue to report them, it will put your account at risk.