It does seem that many intellectual property holders have begun to be abusing the guidelines of the First Sale Doctrine. I recognize the very real concerns of black and grey market material from overseas factories producing an excess of licensed properties. We sell licensed products (largely Star Wars and Star Trek), but most of these items have been out of production for 30+ years and have been purchased on the secondary market from collectors or old shop stock. I received this form email today, with reference to a specific product they have now removed.
Reading over the form, I can truthfully attest that we are within acceptable boundaries on this. But if Shopify starts going the direction of Amazon with this and requiring us to provide invoices to prove we are somehow approved to sell items from companies that often no longer exist, this would shut us down. We have largely moved off Amazon as a platform since it simply isn’t possible (not just for us, but any vendor) to prove an original purchase invoice for a product that hasn’t been in production for 20 years.