RA/OA is not legal. You can’t sell stuff you bought at Wal-Mart as new on Amazon.

The Court’s decision made a number of key findings.

• First, the Court held that the defendant was infringing on Otter’s trademarks by selling products that are materially different than the product sold by Otter because they are not covered by Otter’s warranty. The Court recognized that products sold without a manufacturer’s warranty are materially different products, and the defendant’s sale of products without Otter’s warranty were likely to cause consumer confusion.
• Second, the Court held that the defendant was infringing on Otter’s trademarks and creating consumer confusion by selling products outside of Otter’s quality controls. The Court recognized that Otter has, and abides by, legitimate quality control standards, and that the nonconforming sales by Triplenet are an interference with these standards, which diminish the value of Otter’s trademark.
• Third, the Court held that because the defendant represented that its products are covered by the Otter Warranty when those products are, in fact, not covered by the Otter Warranty, they made false or misleading statements. Furthermore, they held that these material misrepresentations cause confusion and harm Otter.

We have been telling folks this for years. Just more proof to be dismissed/ignored.

The biggest issue is warranty, when you buy at retail the warranty is consumed (unless otherwise stipulated not in writing). And the product (unopened) becomes USED.

I’m posting the title to the press release page,

Vorys Successfully Argues on Behalf of Otter Products, Federal Court Issues First-of-its-Kind Ruling Supporting Brands’ Approach to Reducing Gray Market Sales on Amazon

So Sellers may search online to read it. After your offsite link gets edited.

And also the actual court case Otter Products, LLC v. Triplenet Pricing Inc., No. 1:19-cv-00510

Read the case. It turned around warranty. This has long been an exception to first sale doctrine.

If you own the Trademarked goods and you do not allow sellers that you did not approve to sell. Then the seller cannot sell. End of story.
Now if the owner does not enforce this policy or does not have the policy. Then there is no reason why you cannot sell. Of course there maybe other issues, but if there is nobody to police these then you are off to the races.
Much on Amazon is like speeding. Not allowed. But if nobody is issuing tickets, well i guess speed away.

I feel like you already know the answer to this. The answer is that you need the brand’s authorization. However, you can find RA/OA people on here that will tell you whatever you want to hear i.e. “no you don’t need it, i sell a bazillion products without brand permission and my account is fine” etc.

Don’t know about cell phones or electronics but w/ used books( we don’t sell NEW), AMZ is getting approval to sell almost every brand(publisher), even the smallest.

Forced to go through approval process for almost every publisher, even those that are nearly moribund or have a tiny backlist.

For smaller publishers, sellers must watch a short video, then answer a half-dozen questions to get approval, based on one’s selling record. Larger publishers demand that one purchase through them/ distributor and flourish an invoice less than 6 months old to prove same.

Since many of the titles we sell have been out-of-print 15-50 years, this platform is no longer the place to offer used inventory. The clock is ticking…

Great! Now, unless you have the brand´s authorization to resell the items, you can´t sell them as new. Again, you own them? they can´t be listed as new. They are pre-owned. Who was the previous owner? You.

You want to list them as new? You need a reseller agreement, or at least a LOA.

Regarding the drop shippers: as soon as the order is placed with the retailer, it doesn´t matter what the shipping address is, the drop shipper is the owner, as they paid for the item. Now, that he sold it to an Amazon customer right away is a different thing. The drop shipper can (and will) face the exact same issues than the unauthorized reseller, plus some additional ones for the fact the item was never in their possession on the first place.

I have no position on this, except if you include that we sell/did sell, hundreds of thousands of dollars of products from a company as an authorized stocking reseller. Well for them they did not give a bleep about the gray market. All fine with them. Not fine with us, they lost.

But back to the issue.

First Sale Doctrine Wars

Every time I see this come up, I think of our local town and the CTV channel.

A show that repeats quite often. No one ever wins, some want the recycling centers, some do not want junkyards. Not a single person appears to agree if it is allowed or it is not. Regardless of the law.

1. You assume that what Vorys says is in fact correct.

2. The 3rd point in their post here has nothing to do with the rest of it. If you advertise that it has a warrant but does not, that is false advertising. This alone is enough to win the case referenced and does not really create any new case law.

Retail Arbitrage (buying something from somewhere OTHER than straight from the manufacturer/distributor, like a garage sale, pallet sale, business closing sale, clearance rack, Goodwill, etc.) is not illegal. However, Amazon and manufacturers are taking a stance against people who sell things with warranties on online sites because the warranties will not be honored. I know people who sell things like cd’s and dvd’s and other items that really don’t come with warranties per se (usually stores will exchange defective ones for up to 30 days). But the Amazon return policy will cover that for those items. I buy cd’s direct from several artists. They have no “warranties” per se on their items. So I believe it really matters what you sell as to how your source it.