It's very simple. You've probably heard it mentioned before, it's called 'plausable deniability'.
Ebay has a policy of no counterfiets and enforces it in several ways. They do this mainly to protect themselves from legal action by the parenting companies of designer goods. Since their policies state that no fakes can be sold and that they activly police and enforce those policies, they can rest at ease under plausable deniability that they have no knowledge of counterfeits being allowed to be sold on ebay..
However, and this is a quote from ebay policy, 'ebay depends heavily on it's members to report any aucton listing that they think is in violation of ebay listing policies'.
This is how it actually works: A member sees an item that they think might be counterfeit, (or that might be in competition with them) so they hit the 'report button' located at the bottom of every auction listing..The next thing that happens is that an actual ebay employee is suppose to ' look at the auction listing and based on what we see, make a determination as wether to pull the listing or let it continue to run'. 'If a listing is reported by a 'vero' it's pulled reguardless'.
However, what actually happens is that any and all listings that are reported are just automatically pulled, wether they are reported by a member or a vero (verifyed rights owner).
The 'reporting of an illegal item by a member is mostly just used by more seasoned sellers as a way of cutting their competition and normally new sellers are targeted...
Ebay wants everyone to think that they are 'trying their best' to stem the selling of counterfeit goods. But in reality it's all just smoke and mirrows...They pull a few hundred listings every day and it makes it look like the sheriff is in town...
But the truth of the matter is that about 95 percent or even more of all designer goods sold on ebay are fakes..If you look at a random day of 'designer handbags' you will normally see about 50 thousand to 80 thousand listings every day...And most all of them are fakes.....Do you really think that ebay wants to loose the listings and final value fees on that many listings?
I've sold a ton of authentic handbags, when I could get them a few years back,, my normal listing fee was an average of 5 dollars, the bags normally closed out at several hundred dollars so ebay got a nice final value fee on that amount in addition to the listing fee. .
But let's just look at the lower value of the listing fee, the 5 dollars average for that type of item... 50,000 items at 5 dollars for each listing equals $250,000.00. Yes, that right a quarter million dollars for the listing fee for just that day...
And that only for the handbag catagory, don't forget about all the other designer clothing, tiffiny jewelry, etc.
And of course they are going to target the little seller and leave the big powersellers alone, because who do you think they are making more money from...
Sad part is that even when you do list an authentic item, often times it will get pulled because some powerseller competitor will report it to help cut his competition and protect 'their' territory..
And you are right, most all designer companies only sell their items through their own boutiques, major department stores, and factory stores...You cannot buy them at 'wholesale'. If you see designer items listed at a wholesale price, it's basically telling you that the items are fake...
You can however buy most designer items at 'discounted' prices and through 'liquidations' and 'surplus/closeout' dealers.
Just look at the top of any forum catagory for the heading:
'Salehoo Members Profit Packs and Bulk Deals'. You can click on that heading for more information and also read about what members who are buying from that site have to say.