Will eBay be banned in France?
web 2.0 crystal ball - predicting future developments December 4th, 2007
As read some minutes ago in this (german) post from the respected newschannel zdnet.de, the governmental authorities of France attack eBay heavily: they are demanding to forbid eBay to offer their services in France! The reason they give for this is, that eBay is just “hiding” as a intermediary between seller and buyer to cut their own responsibilities all commercial websites have in European Union by law. Ebay is in this way not protecting the customer enough and is breaking therefore a european law from 2000 reglementing online and offline auctions.
Ebay is (of course) rejecting all these complaints. A final decision in this case is not expected earlier than in 2 to 3 months. We’ll see then, how this will affect other’s european governments decisions. Maybe eBay in Europe will have a bad 2008!
Update 5. 12. 2007
Unfortunately my french isn’t as good as it had to be to fully translate the article above for you. But the main issue is clear: France is increasing the pressure on eBay. During the last months some luxury labels like Hermès, LVMH and Rolex fought heavily in court against eBay in several european countries. They blame eBay to be the main source of faked products of their brands, that come in masses mainly from China into european markets. The last victory they won was some weeks ago in Germany, where ROLEX finally won against eBay. The highest german court sentenced eBay to do everything technically possible to block offers with products that are either fake or violate a brand in any other manner. In parallel it was reported that sales on eBay went down by 16% in Germany over the year 2006 with an even more downward trend of loss in marketshare of eBay in Germany for 2007. May be the reason is somehow related to the wide presence of faked or falsified brand products on eBay.de and consequently a loss of customer trust in eBay offerings.
So that now France is spearheading the battle to finally wipe off eBay from the whole EU makes nobody wonder. France is known for the worldwide operating luxury companies like LVMH (e.g. Louis Vuitton), Chanel or Hermès - all heavily affected by eBay “uneffective” battle against brand piracy. The news from yesterday will shake eBay very seriously: in all cases ever fought the High European Court decided in the way now argued by France government against those companies who tried to maneuver around european law like eBay tries now. And -as european law is harmonized all over the EU- this would finally mean, that not only France but whole European Union is affected.
eBay has either to change it’s business model heavily (e.g. offering themselves(!) 2 years of warranty on every - even a used- products sold on eBay) or shut down their services completetly in europe.
This, again, would create some nice new business opportunities for other eCommerce sites in 2008.
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It seems like eBay is under attack from a number of fronts in Europe. Several competitors, including www.play.com, www.priceminister.fr and www.hitmeister.de are offering localized alternatives. And all three seem to be growing quicker than eBay and capitalizing on the weaknesses.
It will be interesting to see how fast the huge eBay can change.
Here is a little clarification:
French law requires the regulator of an auction to validate the goods auctioned. In exchange for a share of the sale, the regulator, which is recognized by the State, verifies and guarantees the authenticity of the goods.
The catch in eBay’s case is for France’s judiciary to decide whether eBay is to be considered as a public auctioneer, which is regulated to ensure that the buyer gets authentic goods, or if it is only a tool for private auctions where regulation is not required.
The size of eBay and the open character of the auctions suggests the former. But it may not take much compromise on each side to approve of the latter.
The decision will be made in hopes to balance properly preventing the sale of counterfeit goods and giving people a convenient way to sell their valuables.
Here is a quick nearby translation of the article :
eBay is again attacked by a luxury brand : following information in Challenges mag, the group Hermès has attacked in justice the auction website. the group blame on eBay to permit the sell of false handbags. « A user has sold online three bags Hermès for 3000 Euros, and two of them was false », as confirm AFP a speakwomen of eBay. The complain has been put in february 2007, in the court of Troy, but has only been revealed now.
eBay has been already been blamed for similar facts in september 2006 by Louis Vuitton and Dior Couture, who claim respectively 20 millions and 17 millions euros to eBay. In august 2006, Union of manifacturer (Unifab), the first french association against the false products, had already denounced the boom on the selling of false sales on the auction website
eBay have latest years poped alot of work to prevent and stop the online sales of those type of merchandise. The website still “think with Hermès for the ways to battle against the false objects », has said the spokewomen of AFP.
Even the online giants have issues when entering new territory and whenever this occurs, all the localized and smaller guys come out to play harder and grab their pickings. In ebay’s defense, they claim to be incorporating stricter measures to help enforce fraud items sold across their site. This is e-business, and we’ll have to watch and see what occurs for the auction giant.
[…] Ebay is (of course) rejecting all these complaints. A final decision in this case is not expected earlier than in 2 to 3 months. We’ll see then, how this will affect other’s european governments decisions. Maybe eBay in Europe will have a bad 2008! (story) […]
While it wouldn’t hurt ebay to change their structure to better compete in Europe, it’s absolutely ludicrous to ask them to provide a 2 year warranty on things they never sold in the first place.
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I have been making this very point about ebay for a long time now. Its about time someone and in this case “France” sttod up to Ebay. Ebay in my opinion is responsible for everything being sold on their site. They make a profit from every sale, when a counterfeit is sold Ebay becomes part of the crime. And yes, it is a crime to sell and profit from counterfeits. Ebay needs to do more about the problem.