Do eBay Sellers Know That Their Stuff is Fake?
June 30, 2008 – 5:35 pmI was not going to post anything about Louis Vuitton beating eBay in a French court — to the tune of $60MM+ in damages — but one of my favorite blogs, Marginal Revolution, posted something on which I commented. My comment is below:
I interned at a women’s accessories manufacturer in their legal department (not one involved in the suit, from what I can tell). Part of our job duties entailed searching through eBay for what we thought were fakes (and typically, it was easy to spot with as little as a day’s training), email eBay via their VERO program, rinse, repeat.
What’s interesting is that the number of pure counterfeiters was very low. What I mean by that is simply that each “counterfeiter” sold, on average, under three or four fake handbags over the course of, say, 3 months. Those who sold multiple counterfeits were easily identified and shut down, unlikely to return anytime soon. So basically, there are no arch criminals who are (a) selling counterfeits (b) on eBay. More likely — and I think this is obvious — there’s a handful of downstream providers who are making and selling these fakes; those fakes end up in then hands of various women across the country; and sooner or later a percentage of them end up on eBay via a number of channels.
But if there are few, if any, eBay sellers whose business is reliant on counterfeits to any appreciable degree. And these eBay sellers are obtaining the bags via tag sales, estate sales, at thrift shops, in association with consignment shops, etc. That is, they’re picking up used bags and making a best (albeit bad) guess as to the validity of the logo on the bag; they are *not* going to Canal Street in NYC and knowingly buying a fake Louis Vuitton handbag (or 50).
So I wonder: is counterfeiting of women’s accessories any worse today than it was pre-eBay? It seems the answer is “not appreciably.” The bags for sale on eBay, by and large, were purchased used. The consumer who originally purchased the bag almost certainly did not calculate or internalize the re-sale value of that bag when purchasing it, so it’s unlikely that the demand for counterfeit handbags went up because of eBay. The person selling the bag on eBay, again, probably isn’t knowingly or appreciably in the counterfeiting business, so that person also has a minimal effect on the demand for counterfeits.
This isn’t to say that, for brands like LV, fakes on eBay are a non-issue — that’s a topic for another day. But the real problem here for the brands isn’t eBay, and that’s pretty clear.
If you want more anecdotal evidence that I’m right, check out this auction for a “vintage Dooney and Bourke handbag”. I have no idea if the bag is legit, but if it is, I doubt the seller knows. The seller is not selling anything else and appears to have sold only stamps/coins beforehand. Most likely, the bag is something she or a friend had lying around and figured could fetch a Hamilton or two, never thinking about the market for fake goods.
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