perfume/cologne decants are supposedly ending at ebay this sunday!
they are going to stop letting people try to sell them.
I haven’t heard or seen anything about this. Are they saying it falls under the “used cosmetics” rule or something?
I saw this on basenotes.
I think the manufactuers fell it’s undercutting the sales of their brands and so they pressured ebay to cut it out. Actually, i think i t may be more than just ebay. Check the basenotes forum for exact details if you are interested.
man that sux.. ive been buying through ebay for a while now
I’m not sure about this one! Ebay sends me email updates about all changes and I have never received anything on this. There are also current listings for colognes.
i saw it on basenotes. i have to admit i didn’t read through most of the thread though.
If this is true, then what a drag.
I’ve been following the story on basenotes, Perfume of Life, makeupalley and the perfumeposse blog. It’s true. Decants are no longer allowed to be sold on ebay.com … other countries’ (UK and France, for example) ebay still allow them. Major ebay sellers of decants were notified personally by ebay, often by telephone, advising them to remove all decant listings by last Friday. There are still a few decants for sale (324 right now, compared to thousands last week) probably because those small-time sellers didn’t get personally notified about the ban. The big players are gone, though.
Apparently one or more major perfume label has pressured ebay to stop these sales, supposedly under the FDA’s rules forbidding sales of “used cosmetics” - however, you are still allowed to sell perfume, even used perfume, on ebay in its original packaging. You’re not allowed to sell it in a container other than the one it came in. Ebay is not saying which manufacturers are behind this move.
Some of the major ebay sellers of decants are organizing to form their own website to sell from there; we’ll see whether they get a cease and desist letter - but at least that would out the companies behind it.
Here’s a link about the ban, and a sign-up if you want to be notified about the new decants website:
Perfume Posse » Blog Archive » eBay is Stoopid, but Tom Ford isn’t!
Recent development: It seems that some sellers of decants are going to stick it out and see what happens. I now see 523 decants listed, and one of the bigger sellers, dragonfly00, still has her store up.
The conversation continues at Basenotes, for those interested in the market forces/intellectual property law arguments on the topic.
interesting…