eBay and Amazon Sellers Feel Mistreated by Chain Stores

by: Tinker Belle

This is the US of A, and nobody is allowed to prevent you from selling or giving away or whatever you want, items you legally purchase.

As Sephora said "Sephora reserves the right, with or without notice, to cancel or reduce the quantity of any order to be filled or products to be provided to you ..." this is the answer for them. Not telling you that you "can't" resell something.  

by: sasikat9

Why are these people buying from retailers to resell on Ebay....

I would think distributors would be even a better buy. We buy from a distributor and get just about the same discount that your retailer gets on items.

But maybe these sellers don't have a resale license ( sales tax license in some states ).


I find it hard to feel sorry for them as we jumped through all the hoops and loops in order to buy at a discount.

by: JordanMalik.com

There are plenty of solutions for the seller here.

First, there are plenty of stores (online and brick and mortar) where one can source.

If there are quantity limits for a store chain, the Amazon/eBay seller should simply buy lesser quantities. Or send a friend/friends.

The enforcement of these restrictions, by the way (just like a lot of other store policies) are generally short-lived.

Bottom line: if one door closes, go open another.

by: Tula

I can understand how the stores are feeling about this. If a reseller comes in and buys out a popular offering, it leaves nothing for other customers. Disappointed customers will go elsewhere to shop, which is exactly opposite of what the stores are trying to do with sales and loss leaders. They should limit how many can be purchased at one time and not allow resale licenses to be used. Those resellers who later try to return items give a bad name to those who don't. Like anything else, all it takes is a few bad apples to spoil it for the rest. I can't blame them for booting that sort of reseller. Can't say I feel sorry for those who boast and post videos of what they're doing, either. Giving away your sourcing secrets is just plain dumb and you can now see the consequences.

by: Rexford

I for one do not understand it.  A store opens for business to sell.  A buyer comes into buy.  Why is it any of the establishments' business what a buyer does with the item after the sale.

I can see it now though, since businesses in the USA own our politicians, look for them to mobilize and buy our politicians to change the laws in their favor.

How do these stores track this?  Any buyer can walk in with cash and purchase items. If a buyer finds a great deal on an item and wants to buy a lot of that item to give as gifts, will that buyer be blacklisted?

I do understand though why, if a buyer comes in and buys a ton of merchandise to sell elsewhere, and then tries to return the merchandise when it doesn't sell, a business would take issue.  I myself would be upset by this.

It sounds like these businesses are trying to micro-manage their buyers like some ecommerce sites try to micro-manage their sellers.  :)

by: Sellerofall

@sasikat9 This is in reference to basically when Target puts out really limited releases of clothing from expensive designers that make an "affordable" line just for target randomly.  They sell out in seconds and use to be resold for double the price on eBay until everyone caught on and tried doing it.  You definately cant get these exclusive lines from a distributor and they are not talking about a standard Nike shirt or Frozen toy that every store carries

by: sasikat9

@sellerofall.

I still don't understand the mind set. I've bought more than one limited edition, short supply, one time offering from my distributors over the past few years to sell on ebay, amazon, ecrater etc.

If I was a B&M store I would be disgusted if someone came in and bought all my marked down loss leaders and then BROADCASTED IT, and about all the money they are making.

Probably why most retailers put limits on things.

When one Broadcasts and rubs the deal into the B&M's nose I don't blame them for putting a stop to it. I would think anyone with half a brain would have gone into the store and bought just as much as they wanted, paid for it. walked out and kept their mouths shut...

No these nuts have to google it and broadcast it to anyone within earshot.  They got what the deserved.

by: iheartjacksparrow

During the last holiday season, Disneyland had signs everywhere that there was a limit of five per person of any Frozen item in order to cut down on people buying out a product line and listing them all on eBay.

I definitely think that retailers should refuse to take returns if it appears those items were initially purchased for the sole purpose of reselling them. If someone buys ten widgets, and two months later they want to return four of them, the return should be refused.    

by: aim04744

You can limit my purchases but you CAN NOT tell me what I can or can not do with them after I purchase them. First Sale Doctrine applies. Once I purchase something in your store I own it. Mine. I can rip it into tiny shreds or resell it at will. If I am paying the price you are asking for it,then  you got what you wanted. and you can not take the return, fine by me too. I wont shop at stores who are heavy handed. (disclaimer* I did not participate in the LP Target buy out, nor do I purchase items on clearance and return them if they dont sell.)

by: Tula

I agree that stores have no business dictating what you do with an item you purchase. First Sale doctrine rules that. Limiting the number of items one can purchase is probably the best way to curb the abuse. Many stores are already cracking down on "serial returners", since some of them are actually returning stolen merchandise (a friend who works in a large store told me about this) or clothing that they treated as a rental.

It's too bad that those twits who just want their faces on Youtube have to ruin things for everyone. People have been doing retail arbitrage for years, but were smart enough not to abuse the system that allowed them to make some money. Thanks to the braggarts, there are now floods of ham-fisted amateurs trying to cash in, kind of like what happened after all those reality shows about antiques, pawn shops, and storage auctions came along. There's always that group who chases the newest way to a fast buck and doesn't care who they step on in the process. Some stores are going too far in their reactions, but I really can't blame them for not wanting to supply those who want to take their customers away.

by: Ebay Seller-Ebay Buyer

Surprised any business would reject large orders.  Makes more sense to make more of your product than to reject large orders

by: gizmo

Hypo> You buy 100 for 50 each. They sell for 85 , you sell for 84. They suffer sales. No brainer.

On the Tax since , I buy storage auction, from time to time. Resale license comes into play. Any large purchases , for purpose of resale comes with tax duty. Purchase tax, as well as sales.

by: gresham95

I do get where these stores are coming from. They want people to come in for a loss leader, buy it, and shop some more. If it isn't there, they likely are walking out of the store angry, and may not even be back. If you limit purchases (i.e. one per item for loss leaders) then wouldn't that solve the problem?) Another solution is to not allow returns on markdowns, or give a very narrow return window. I get that stores want to make things easy for customers.  

by: askalice59

The average American only has X amount of dollars to spend on anything and if they are spending it on resale items on eBay, they aren't going out to the the corporate stores to buy 'new' items. Target and most any retail department store depends on impulse buys. They need to drag people past things to get them to buy. Internet sales have hurt the malls and they are doing what they can to stop resellers. China does not profit on the resale of anything. Controlling our eBay sales reach with a 'special' cassini search engine was just the beginning of the end for small sellers. Now they are going to control our sources of inventory.

by: Moonwishes

I do not comprehend the cry-babies that are being cut off from buying huge quantities of retail merchandise from retail stores. Those stores never agreed to be sources of inventory for stores at all.

Why all the problems now? Pure piggy greed. If these resellers had bought reasonable amounts of goods, they would have never been noticed, but by buying or attempting to buy huge quantities they got noticed. And they are taking away inventory that the stores need for loss leaders or the sales that stores have to draw buyers into their stores.

by: Rexford

As I read back through all of the postings I think that since no one buying what a store is selling is doing anything illegal, then the simple solution for the B&M stores is to place limits on certain items that they do not wish to be resold as several folks have mentioned above.

But again, it is really none of a store's business what one does with the item after the sale.

The morning of the big Lilly Pulitzer fiasco at Target, I actually had a co-worker call me wanting to know if I wanted to list the Lilly items that she had just purchased and take a cut (she does not sell on eBay).  I said no thank you.

by: comet

I have bought small quantities of good deals to resell on ebay--nothing like what we saw with the LP stuff recently tho!!!--and I would not expect the store to take back what I might not be able to sell.  I have probably also bought a limited number of things from other sellers on short supply stuff we cannot find deep in the country.

I do feel that these stores--TARGET I am looking at you!!!---are creating some of this as "hype"  for themselves.  First off--they just CLOSED all=-=ALL--Target Canada stores--so WHERE are the former shoppers of Target in Canada going to GET stuff they might want?  Several areas of the country don't even HAVE Targets--Vermont is one--whereas I can think of about ten starting 28 miles from me--

Are Target deprived buyers from Canada suppossed to get in their cars and DRIVE hundreds of miles to buy--what exactly? But---Target says--nope;  thou shalt NOT buy brightly printed frocks from Evil Ebay.

So-==-where DO they get off claiming that they are abused?  Most of these items were heavily promo'ed;  they were in CERTAIN stores or only some stores had certain items in the promo--so who made this problem?

They did not just keep this all a secret and put the stuff out on the racks some randon Tuesday.

Walmart used to offer --and may still---to order whatever quantity of items you might want --I know my mother used this for a particular container she was buying for HER small business and was constantly on the prowl at local WM's to find it--and then she would buy all they had.  One day one of the workers noticed this and asked her what she was using them for--and how they kept not being able to supply other customers with this item--and he offered to order however many she wanted and because she was in the same plaza he even delivered them!   They knew she was selling them to go with a particular set up--she sold beads and jewelry items--and they were FINE with this.  One hand washed the other.

I don't really "get" what the whining is about--Target created an artificial shortfall and then promoted it--they have only themselves to blame.

As for Sephora etc---the "crime" here is NOT buying the stuff--or even re-selling the stuff---it is that sadly the re-seller was --in Sephora's eyes--attempting to take THEIR profits and customer base AWAY.  Is this true?  Who knows--again;  there is not a Sephora on every corner--and I don't know if they do mail order.  

Some business' welcome this sort of stuff--we have a local place that sells to the public two days a year and they are--and have been for 35 YEARS--happy to have you buy and resell.  Do they know I do this?  Hell yes--and they are happy to see me!

The only places I have found that get hysterical--and this IS funny--are THRIFT STORES.  For some reason they imagine that we are turning tons of profit AND stopping the next peron from buying whatever widget is on the rack or shelf.  One in my town actually kicked a local consignment store owner OUT after some one bought an item at one place;  decided it was not for her and re-donated it to the OHTER shop.  Did the OWNER of the consign do this?  Nope!  But--the other place took offense.  Do I still shop and re-sell from there?  Yes--but I also do not BROADCAST this!

You won't tell now, will you?  

by: Surplus

Wow the attitudes here are off the charts and explain alot of the problem buyers on ebay.  Lets see; Kohls, Target, who ever are in the business of RETAIL sales, you want to come buy large quantities of product from them to sell at RETAIL in YOUR store....Does anybody see a potential competitor here?  Why should any retailer knowingly sell to a competitor on a regular basis?  This doesn't seem like good business and its not....So Target and others are attempting to cutoff these buyers and rightly so.  Have I ever sold parts on a one time sale to a competitor?  sure when they were in a jam but not on a regular basis or in large quantities.  If you want to sell retail you have to buy wholesale.  Buying wholesale comes with a price discount and increased risk for the retailer as generally product is not returnable to the wholesaler as this is how business works.  Seems to me the whiners here want it both ways they want to make a profit with zero risk so they can return unsold product if they guessed wrong.  Life or capitalism in this case doesn't work that way.  No risk should equal no reward.....Nuff said

by: Chicago48

As everybody stated, this is the USA and if these retailers were concerned they would put a limit on purchase.  In fact, if you look at retail ads and coupon ads, there is a limit to purchase.
However, I don't know how someone can buy from Sephora.com and resell at a profit unless they are buying "buy 1 get 1 free".  Sephora doesn't discount too deeply, normally 50%.  Same for the other retailers. How can someone go to sephora.com, buy the discounted item and pay for shipping, resell it and make a profit?  They would have to buy gobs of beauty products.

by: Chicago48

I know at my local dollar store there are immigrants to come in and load up on their carts with multiples of stuff from toilet paper to soap, to you name it and they are restocking their shelves.  You just know it.  Now buying from the dollar store to resell makes sense for a small mom& pop store.  In fact, the dollar store has a website that encourages bulk buying.