Hunton Retail Law Resource

A longer version of this blog post originally appeared as an article in Retail TouchPoints: Policing Your Brand on Online Marketplaces: an Intellectual Property Guide for Retailers. Further duplication is not permitted.

Retailers often face brand policing challenges on online resale platforms such as Wayfair, Overstock.com, and eBay. Resellers account for a significant portion of retail sales on these websites. Resellers tend to be small to midsize entities but are nevertheless able to reach a large number of US consumers. It’s thus unsurprising that problems arise daily, often relating to brand owners’ dissatisfaction with the third-party resellers and their sales practices.

Counterfeit goods continue to become increasingly ubiquitous, presenting a host of issues for both retailers and consumers. In addition to a variety of legal consequences and the sometimes massive effect on companies’ bottom lines, counterfeit and pirated goods are often accompanied by risks to public health and safety and even national security.