How to do an eBay VeRO brand check before you list a product

What is an eBay VeRO brand check?

An eBay VeRO brand check is short research you do before listing a product. You look for signs that the brand's rights owner reports eBay listings, and you make sure your own listing does not infringe anyone's intellectual property. It takes a few minutes per brand and can save you a removed listing, a warning or worse.

VeRO stands for Verified Rights Owner. It is the eBay programme that lets owners of intellectual property, such as trade marks and copyright, report listings that infringe their rights. It runs on both eBay.co.uk and eBay.com, and eBay's VeRO programme page is the official place to read how it works.

eBay does not publish a complete list of every brand whose owner reports listings. A brand check is about gathering evidence from several places and making a sensible decision, not about finding one definitive answer.

Why does a VeRO brand check matter before you list?

eBay says an infringing item is not allowed on eBay. When a rights owner reports a listing, eBay may remove it, warn you, restrict your account or suspend it. A run of reports against one brand can hurt an otherwise healthy account.

Checking first costs less than fixing later. Once a listing is removed you lose its sales history, and you spend time on appeals instead of selling. For the full reporting process, read our guide to the eBay VeRO programme and what happens when a rights owner reports your listing.

A brand check also protects your buyers. Brands that are widely counterfeited often monitor marketplaces closely, and you want to be confident that what you sell is genuine and described accurately.

How do you check a brand against eBay VeRO, step by step?

Work through these steps for each new brand. Write down what you find, because a record helps if you ever need to explain your decision to eBay or to a rights owner.

1. Confirm the exact brand and who owns it

Read the brand field, the manufacturer name and the packaging in the product photos. Some products carry a retailer's own label, some are made under licence (for example, a toy featuring a film character) and some carry several brands at once. Each name can belong to a different rights owner, so check each one.

2. Read eBay's VeRO pages for the site you sell on

Start with eBay's VeRO programme page. Some rights owners also publish a VeRO participant profile on eBay that explains what they object to, such as unauthorised sellers, use of their logos or particular product lines. Search eBay's help pages for "VeRO participant profiles" on the site where you list. Not every rights owner that reports listings has a profile, so a missing profile is not a green light.

3. Check the brand's own website

Look for pages about authorised retailers, authorised resellers or brand protection. A brand that names a short list of approved sellers, or warns buyers about unauthorised marketplace sales, is telling you how it views resellers. Treat this as a strong signal, not as a legal ruling.

4. Look at the brand on eBay itself

Search the brand on eBay.co.uk or eBay.com and compare what you see with how popular the brand is elsewhere. If a well-known brand has very few listings from independent sellers, or the only sellers are the brand and its named retailers, that pattern can mean listings are being reported. Check sold listings as well as live ones.

5. Check prohibited, restricted and counterfeit rules

Some items are banned or restricted whatever the brand. Our guide to checking a product against eBay's prohibited and restricted items covers that check. If the brand is heavily faked, read our explanation of the eBay counterfeit policy and brand names in listings before going further.

6. Decide and record

Sort each brand into one of three groups: list it, list it only after more checks and with your own photos and words, or avoid it. Record the date, the sources you checked and your decision in a simple spreadsheet.

Example (hypothetical numbers): suppose you shortlist 40 products from 25 brands. At about 5 minutes per brand, the check takes roughly 2 hours. Say 18 brands look low risk, 4 need more checks and 3 show clear warning signs. If 6 of your 40 products come from those 3 brands, you drop them and list 34, with the 4 uncertain brands held back until you have finished checking them. The figures are illustrative only; your own split will differ.

Which warning signs mean a brand is high risk?

No single signal proves that a rights owner will report you, and an owner can start reporting at any time. Read the signals together.

Rights owners decide where and what they report. A brand that is quiet on eBay.co.uk may report on eBay.com, or the other way round, so check the site you actually list on.

Can a listing break VeRO even if the brand is fine?

Yes. VeRO covers more than trade marks. Copyright in photos and product descriptions belongs to whoever created them, and copying someone else's images or text can lead to a report even when the item itself is genuine. eBay says that if only the way an item is listed infringes, you may be able to edit the listing.

Keep your listing content clean with these habits:

• Use photos you have the right to use. eBay's picture policy requires photos to accurately represent the item and to be at least 500 pixels on the longest side. Added borders, added text, artwork and watermarks of any kind are not allowed.
• Write your own description. Do not copy a manufacturer's or another retailer's text word for word unless the rights owner allows it.
• Use a brand name only for the item's real brand. Avoid words like "style" or "inspired by" next to another brand's name, and never add a competing brand to your title or item specifics to catch extra searches.
• Keep logos out of your images and store branding. A brand's logo is usually a protected mark in its own right.
• Write honest titles. An eBay title can be at most 80 characters. Use them for the real brand, model, size and colour, not for a list of other brands.

Intellectual property law is not identical in the UK and the US. If a brand is central to your business, take advice from a qualified IP solicitor or attorney about your own situation.

Does sourcing from Amazon change the VeRO check?

The brand check itself is the same, but sellers who source from Amazon face a separate eBay rule first. eBay's drop shipping policy (eBay.co.uk, eBay.com) says dropshipping from a wholesale supplier is allowed, but listing an item on eBay and then buying it from another retailer or marketplace that ships directly to your buyer is not allowed. Even when dropshipping, you stay responsible for safe delivery within the time stated in your listing and for the buyer's overall satisfaction.

Every Amazon purchase is also made under Amazon's own Conditions of Use and Sale, so read them for yourself.

An Amazon product page usually shows a brand field, which helps with step 1. The photos and bullet points on that page, though, were created by someone else, which raises the copyright points above. Dropizon checks brands against a VeRO list before drafts are published and flags live listings whose brand matches; the Dropizon documentation explains how that check works. No list of this kind is complete, so treat any automated flag as a first filter and still do the manual steps.

What happens if a rights owner reports your listing?

eBay removes the reported listing and emails you. The email gives the rights owner's contact address. Your options depend on what was reported:

1. Read the removal email carefully. Note which right the owner says you infringed: the item itself, or the photos, text or brand use in your listing.
2. Fix the listing if only the content was the problem. eBay says that where only the way an item is listed infringes, you may be able to edit the listing.
3. Contact the rights owner if you think the report was a mistake. Use the email address in eBay's removal email, explain politely and ask them to retract the report.
4. Appeal through eBay's internal appeals process if you have grounds.
5. Do not relist the same item unchanged. Move the brand to your avoid list and review any other live listings from the same rights owner.

Repeated reports can lead to restrictions or suspension, so act on the first one rather than waiting for a second.

A quick checklist before you publish

• Identify every brand and licensed name on the product and its packaging.
• Read eBay's VeRO programme page and search for a participant profile for each rights owner on your eBay site.
• Check the brand's website for authorised reseller or brand protection pages.
• Search the brand on eBay, live and sold, and compare it with demand elsewhere.
• Confirm the item is not prohibited or restricted, and that you are confident it is genuine.
• Use photos you have the right to use and a description you wrote yourself.
• Use only the item's real brand in the title and item specifics.
• If you source from a retailer, reread eBay's drop shipping policy before you list.
• Log the date, sources and decision in your brand spreadsheet, and recheck when you add new products.