Selling across multiple cross-border platforms, a trademark plays two roles: proof of qualification for putting your brand name on a listing, and the key that opens the complaint channel when you find hijackers or counterfeits. Requirements vary considerably across platforms: some recognize the rights holder's identity, some only accept registered trademarks, and some do not publish detailed rules. This article explains the thresholds and materials platform by platform; Amazon Brand Registry is covered in a separate article and only compared here.
1. Distinguish the Two Lines First — Don't Mistake Qualification Review for Enforcement
- Qualification review line: the platform allows you to list or open a store under a certain brand and requires trademark or authorization documents;
- Complaint and enforcement line: whether you can file a complaint after discovering infringement and whether it will be accepted.
The thresholds of the two lines differ, but both point to the same premise: you must first be able to prove "this trademark is connected to me." What blocks many Chinese sellers is not "no trademark" but "a trademark with no authorization chain the platform will accept."
2. eBay: The VeRO Program and Notices of Claimed Infringement
eBay's enforcement mechanism is called VeRO (Verified Rights Owner). A trademark owner or its authorized representative can submit a Notice of Claimed Infringement (NOCI) to eBay, requesting removal of allegedly infringing listings.
- Who: the rights holder personally, or a formally authorized representative (lawyer, agency);
- Materials: proof of trademark ownership and an infringement comparison statement, submitted through the designated channel listed on eBay's official VeRO policy page;
- Boundary: VeRO handles intellectual property infringement. Purely commercial channel disputes — minimum advertised price (MAP), selective distribution, unauthorized sales — are outside VeRO's scope and must go through contract or local legal channels.
Practical tip: organize the registration certificate, authorization chain, and infringement screenshots into a standard complaint package, prepared once and reusable. When hijacked on eBay, reaction speed often determines whether the listing survives.
3. Shopee: Brand IP Portal
Shopee has a dedicated brand filing entry; after registering their rights there, rights holders can submit infringement complaints in the corresponding markets. Key points:
- Jurisdiction requirement: you must hold a valid registered trademark in each country where you file; merely pending applications are usually not accepted;
- Trademark type: word marks, or design marks containing text, letters, or numbers; purely graphical marks are not accepted;
- Consistency: the trademark text must match the brand name, and the registration information must align with what is filled in on the platform;
- Applicant: generally only the trademark owner, an entrusted law firm, or authors and publishers are accepted; ordinary distributors usually need an exclusive license or other clear authorization documents;
- Approval time: officially on the order of several business days.
The most common rejection reasons: the trademark has not yet been approved, the trademark's country does not match the filing market, the trademark text does not match the brand name, or the distributor cannot produce authorization documents.
4. AliExpress and Alibaba.com: The Alibaba IPP (IP Protection Platform)
Alibaba-affiliated enforcement goes uniformly through Alibaba IPP: rights holders first register an account and submit ownership proof to complete rights registration; only after platform verification can they file complaints against specific product listings.
- Rights registration is the prerequisite: a trademark that has not been registered cannot be used to initiate a complaint;
- Classes must match: the claimed trademark class must correspond to the actual goods; cross-class claims are easily rejected;
- Same origin as domestic platforms: common reasons for rejected complaint materials are inconsistency between the entity and the trademark owner, unclear documents, and a broken ownership chain.
AliExpress's specific qualification rules for brand onboarding and new product releases vary by period, and much of what circulates comes from third-party tutorials without official sources; this article does not repeat them — defer to current announcements in the seller backend and category qualification descriptions.
5. Temu and SHEIN: Limited Official Text — Prepare Conservatively with "Trademark First"
The two platforms have relatively little official public documentation on brand and trademark review details, and circulated details mostly come from third-party tutorials whose reliability cannot be verified; this article does not cite them. What can be confirmed:
- Merchants with their own brands or who can provide a brand authorization chain (including authorization letters) generally move through onboarding and brand-category review more smoothly;
- When listing products with brand information, the platform verifies consistency between the product and the brand; unauthorized "brand-adjacent" naming is extremely risky;
- Those who need to register as a brand party on the platform generally must provide the trademark registration certificate and entity proof.
Recommendation: whichever platform you use, prepare the registration certificate, authorization letters, purchase receipts, and actual product photos as a materials package you can submit at any time; for specific review standards, defer to the onboarding rules and category qualification descriptions in the platform's seller backend.
6. Side-by-Side Comparison and Layout Recommendations
| Platform | Qualification/Enforcement Entry | Key Points |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Brand Registry | Registered or pending trademarks at recognized offices accepted; word marks or design marks containing text required |
| eBay | VeRO program | Rights holders/authorized representatives can file NOCIs; does not handle MAP and other commercial disputes |
| Shopee | Brand IP Portal | Requires a registered trademark in each target country; word marks or design marks containing text |
| AliExpress/Alibaba.com | Alibaba IPP | Rights registration and verification required before complaints; trademark class must match the goods |
| Temu / SHEIN | Seller backend onboarding and category review | Official details unpublished; having the trademark certificate and authorization chain ready is safest |
| TikTok Shop | Seller Center — Qualification Center — Brand Qualifications | Materials submitted separately by trademark owner or distributors at each tier |
Layout recommendation: when selling the same brand across multiple platforms, treat "registered trademark + authorization chain documents + infringement complaint package" as a piece of infrastructure. First cover the jurisdictions of your highest-revenue markets, then supplement authorization documents and qualification applications for each platform's differences; do not wait until listings are hijacked or complained about before backfilling trademarks.
Brand qualification and complaint rules of each platform update frequently; defer to the latest announcements in the platforms' seller backends and official policy pages. The rules in this article are current as of 2026.
7. Where to Get It Done
For the specific procedures involved in the above matters, book trademark monitoring with MyTMBee, where a registered trademark agent provides end-to-end assistance.