Sportswear companies like adidas and Nike want to ban retailers from selling their products on Amazon.com or eBay, according to the DPA. The German Cartel Office is currently "investigating the sales practices of Japanese sportswear brand Asics." A Cartel Office spokesperson said Wednesday, "I can confirm that we are taking a look at the sales practices of Asics. In addition to that we received a number of complaints in regards to the proposed changes of adidas' sales practices." Two weeks ago adidas announced that it wants to "introduce and establish new online sales practices for adidas and Reebok products by '13." An adidas spokesperson said, "We want to make sure that our products are sold on the websites of our retail partners or our own website." To continue to sell products online, retailers would have to follow detailed guidelines (DPA, 6/27). REUTERS' Inverardi & Bryan reported that adidas CEO Herbert Hainer said, "We get lots of cases where people say 'your shoes didn't make me run faster.' We removed eBay and Amazon from our network because we want our products to be sold be experts." A Nike spokesperson said that "only authorized retailers that fulfill certain criteria" are allowed "to sell its products in Europe, and that Amazon and eBay were not on that list" (REUTERS, 6/27).
