How To Protect Your Resale or Consignment Shopify Website

A couple of shows ago I talked about navigating IG & FB/Meta as a Resale Business owner. Navigating Shopify is very similar.

You are in a unique position being that you sell pre-owned items and you are operating your business sandwiched between the official brands’ stores and websites and the billion-dollar counterfeit industry.

The algorithms and bots don’t know what quite to do with you and the brands themselves don’t know what quite to do with you so what happens is you get embroiled in a murky mixture of being legitimate but caught up in the counterfeit realm.

Brands have been fighting counterfeiters for years and there are too many to go after individually so it’s easier to go after the big guys like Meta, IG, and Shopify and sue them for allowing their items to be sold on their platforms with their payment systems.

I’m going to outline for you today how to help elevate yourself out of the murky waters and add a layer of protection around your Shopify business.

What you’re doing is humanizing your business and you’re being transparent about your legitimacy. You’re not trying to hide anything you’re not being deceitful in any way. You’re not doing any kind of bait and baiting people in with a real authenticated brand item and then selling a counterfeit. You’re not infringing on any copyrights, you’re a legitimate business model selling pre-owned goods.

You’re also humanizing your business. You’re being transparent about who you are, how long you’ve been in business, where you operate out of, and what your business model is.  

How do you do that? By following these tips:  

And this is for everyone in the Resale industry. Clothing, furniture, equestrian, sporting goods. And all brands. We have seen resale businesses get red-flagged for inexpensive items of mainstream brands, so don’t just think it’s luxury only… it’s all brands.  

You have to have the word “used” or “pre-owned” on every product page. If you are a Liberty user, contact them. (You can blame me… haha…) I send a lot of this stuff their way. But reach out to them they have a way of doing a bulk edit or something so that Pre-Owned will show up on all existing products and maybe they have a way that it automatically defaults into product titles, I’m not sure but Richard told me Liberty can add this to all your products.  

If you use Traxia or another POS Software I would reach out to them as well, I am not sure if they have a bulk edit option, if anyone listening happens to know please chime in.  

Have a description on your website like in the About Us section that says you sell used/ pre-owned items and how those items are sourced – people bring you their personal items to sell for which there is a market of people who want to buy those used items. 

Included a short, very friendly write-up about the nature of the consignment or resale business.

Write up how you started, a little bit about you, and being a small business owner. This is an opportunity to add in about your SM accounts, and other platforms that you also sell on.  

Include a write-up on a separate website page, with a link to the authentication software that you use. Write about the use of AI in authentication. Include a paragraph about the damage that counterfeit items do to the economy and the brands themselves. Show that you take a stand against the sale of fake items and that you have a process in place if anyone tries to consign or supply you with a fake item.  

If you sell luxury items or highly counterfeited furniture or other items, Include articles on your website about how to authenticate such brands or items. While this is really good for SEO it further legitimizes your business and you become a teaching source.  

Starting today, include the word “Pre-owned” in your product titles or at least in the top part of your product descriptions & attributes.

If you’re currently using Shopify’s payment processor – stop immediately. Switch to another processor. Sometimes the loophole is not about the selling platform but the legality is with the actual transaction.

If you do receive an email from Shopify – do not ignore it. Many many businesses have received emails months ago about requesting paperwork or requesting additional information and I get it… You’re busy – that request doesn’t seem urgent so it got put on the back burner and stayed there. Unfortunately – now they’re paying the price for not responding.

Take these matters as seriously as you would your taxes – respond immediately, and politely.

Include a colored copy of your:

• • Drivers License,
  • Business License/ Resellers License,
  • Tax ID,
  • Articles of Incorporation;
  • Include that you only sell authentic items and you use a third-party Authentication Software and include a color copy of a letter or a contract from whomever you use;
  • Also, add a note saying that your store has the same business model as The Real Real and Thread Up. I like to use these stores as parallels because they are recognizable and as a side note, they’re good for SEO.

If you want to watch the full training video, you can watch it here. Take note that you should be in our  Consignment Marketing FB Group so you can watch it. If you’re not in our Consignment Marketing FB Group yet, join now for more tips just like this!

Interested to watch the brief summary? Click here.

For the complete training video, tap here. Be sure to join the Consignment Marketing FB Group to have access!