I sell Olympic stuff. The USOC has set up a rule that selling pins made in other countries is illegal in the U.S. if they are sold in Dealer Quantities. They have determined that a dealer quantity is 100 pins or more. Since I plan on selling 500 to 1000 pins on ebay while I am in Beijing in 2008, an interesting question comes up. How can I do this. I have decided the best shot is to set up an account for my son, my daughter, my wife, maybe my in-laws. How many of these accounts can I use my home address? How many can I connect to MY paypal name (or should I set up a paypal account for each of them). Can I use one credit card to pay for all of these accounts?
In the end, this is going to be a ROYAL pain in the back side, but the USOC does what it wants (they are the 800 pound gorilla in my market).
Oh, BTW, I know it SOUNDS like they can't do this, but they do it. The U.S. Code that charters the USOC also gave them the copyrights and all rights to retail sales within the U.S. using the rings logo. They sublease that right to Aminco (their producer and wholesaler) who then sublicenses the customers. They've decided that Non-Aminco pins are illegal to sell in the US, and no one has the time or money to fight them. Most of the pins in beijing will be by the chinese licensee, so according to Aminco and the USOC, they are illegal. The usoc filed Viro against a friend who had some Beijing pins up for sale in march because they had too many (more than 100).
