If you search for wholesale sunglasses online you may discover that some companies operate multiple websites to sell the same products.  There are reasons for doing this, and it may not be for reasons that you think.

In the “real” world, a company that has only one location for doing business typically has a limit on how much business they are capable of doing.  When customer demand reaches the point where the company can no longer meet the growing needs of their customer base, then the business would need to open more locations in order to grow.

This is the reason why some companies have so many places of business.  Can you imagine if the McDonald’s restaurant had only one restaurant?  It would be impossible for them to generate the enormous amount of sales that they do today with just one restaurant.  This is why McDonald’s has grown to over 30,000 restaurants worldwide.

However, this kind of reasoning doesn’t translate the same way for online businesses.  One e-commerce website selling wholesale sunglasses with decent hosting can handle massive amounts of web traffic and sales without blinking an eye (if a computer server could have an eye that is).  Finding a good e-commerce website that struggles to serve its pages to visitors is as rare as finding a whale in your bathtub.

So if just one website is more than capable of meeting customer demands, then why do some wholesale sunglass dealers launch more websites that sell the exact same products?

The answer lies in search engine listings.

Online business industries tend to be very competitive with each other.  The primary goal for people doing business online is to have their website ranked on the first page of the search engines for their selective search terms and the higher up the page the better.  By accomplishing this they will generate more traffic to their website and that will in turn generate more sales.

Even if one company secures the #1 ranking in Google for their main product keywords, that #1 ranking still won’t secure them every search visitor looking for their type of product.  Now it should be made clear that the #1 ranking will generate more clicks than the #2 spot, but the #2 spot will still receive clicks from people who pass over the top listing and opt for something else.

So it stands to reason that if an online company can acquire multiple positions on the first page of search results then their overall business will benefit in two ways.  First, their business will benefit from having multiple entries in the initial list of search results, thereby increasing the amount of visitors clicking through to their places of business.  Secondly, for every additional search entry listed on the first page for a business another website listing (i.e. a competitor’s business) is removed from the first page and lowered to the second page or worse.

So you can see that if a business can get two or more websites selling wholesale sunglasses listed on the first page of the search engines it will increase the amount of visitors and sales for them while at the same time decreasing these amounts for their competitors.

Back in early November of last year a lawsuit was filed against CTS Wholesale Sunglasses by Oakley.  In the complaint, Oakley alleges that several styles of sunglasses sold by CTS Wholesale, LLC dba Wholesale Discount Sunglasses infringe on Oakley’s property.

You can read the entire lawsuit complaint here.

The short version of Oakley’s complaint is as follows:

• CTS Wholesale, LLC is selling sunglasses on the websites ctswholesalesunglasses.com and wholesalediscountsunglasses.com
• Oakley holds patents related to sunglass design and construction
• Oakley states that CTS Wholesale, LLC is selling sunglasses that infringe on Oakley’s patents
• Oakley states that CTS Wholesale, LLC is infringing on Oakley’s patents with the following sunglasses: “XSportz XS053″, “XSportz XS504″, “XSportz XS510″, “XSportz XS513″, “XSportz XS060″, “XSportz XS061″, “XSportz XS016″, “XSportz XS021″, “XSportz XS505″, “XSportz XS054″, “XSportz XS027″, “XSportz XS510″, “XSportz XS504″, “High Quality Sunglasses CTS2087″, and “High Quality Sunglasses CTS 12210″.
• Oakley is seeking an award of reasonable costs, expenses and attorney fees from CTS Wholesale, LLC, for CTS Wholesale to deliver up and destroy all infringing sunglasses, and for CTS Wholesale to cease selling sunglasses which infringe on Oakley’s patents.

This would appear to be a normal patent infringement lawsuit, but there are some additional details that I could add to this story.

First, Kirk Bachelder is the owner of CTS Wholesale, LLC and this is not the first time he has had legal issues with Oakley.  Early in 2008, he was sentenced in federal court for selling counterfeit Oakley sunglasses over the internet.

Second, the two named websites in the lawsuit complaint are not the only websites where CTS Wholesale sells their products.  They have a retain sunglass website at replicasunglasses4u.com and have announced the start of another website where they plan on selling sunglasses.

What does all this mean to you?  Well, if you are in the business of selling replica sunglasses and you purchase your sunglasses from CTS Wholesale then you might have something to worry about.

People who buy wholesale sunglasses to resell are just as liable for the product they sell as are the suppliers they buy them from.  That is why it is always important to know that the sunglasses you buy are not infringing on any patents, copyrights or trademarks.

We do not have the most current information on the status of this lawsuit, but until it resolves in the courts we strongly urge everyone to proceed with caution if purchasing any of the above named styles from CTS Wholesale.