Welcome to Sunday Classics, a series that re-runs classic savings posts from cincysavers.com. Today's Classic Post is from August 2011. In light of recent coupon policy changes at area chains, a few of our readers have emailed us asking us to run this post again for all of the newcomers.------------------------------------------------------------------ LittleMissKnowitAll, the other day I was out at a flea market and was shocked to see a stand selling products that I know were all recent coupon deals! I'd never heard of this before--is this common? Is it legal? I was even more shocked when I noticed the prices--some of them were even more than normal shelf price in the stores!  ~ Shirley Unfortunately, what you witnessed isn't uncommon. Recently while in the store I was in line behind a man whom Kroger had marked as a reseller, and they were limiting how many products he could buy in one trip. The man was giving them a lot of flack for their limits, but they stood firm and would only let him buy three of each item. There's a lot of misinformation and disagreement on this topic, so let me give you my answers to some very common arguments that those who support reselling use: 1.  Stores only want to sell products; doesn't matter if they sell 200 shampoos to one person or 200. Same profits. WRONG. It matters big time! Stores aren't interested in quantities sold, they're interested in profits. And quantity of one product does not equal higher profits. Higher quantities of multiple products equal greater profits. One person buying 200 bottles buys just that--200 bottles. But 200 people buying one bottle each rarely buy just the one item. They pick up other goods while in the store--increasing sales and profits. 2.  Stores are worried about competition.That's why they don't like it. WRONG. Kroger, Meijer, CVS and Walgreens aren't worried about your yard sale or flea market booth competing with them on prices. Because when push comes to shove they can outprice you ANY day of the week with their buying power. It's how you got the product free to begin with.3.  I bought it and I can do whatever I want with it. WRONG. If you are selling more than a certain number of name brand products repeatedly from the same location, you CAN'T just sell anything you want. Typically at that point business licenses will need to be secured to meet local ordinances, and you need licenses to distribute from the manufacturer or distributors. If there's any regularity to your "sales" then you are in business and will likely need a license. 4.  This is a free market economy--I can sell whatever I want, whenever I want.WRONG. See #3. We are sort of a free market economy--but we have rules and laws in place to protect investment into product development, production (jobs) and innovation. Colgate did not spend $10 million developing and marketing their newest line of toothpaste so that Jim Bob can sell it off the back of his truck. They have the right by law to limit where and by whom their products are sold, and they do just that. Marc Jacobs can't be sold at just any store. Kellogg's is no less picky or protective of their brand name than Marc Jacobs is. Just a different price and genre, that's all. Manufacturers have begun stepping up and making themselves very clear on this subject. There has been a lot of discussion within the coupon professional groups about this, and how to keep coupons from being used for products that are going to be resold. Remember, coupons are advertising. If you notice, many coupons now have a disclaimer on them stating that they are not valid if the product is being bought for resale. Coupons are meant to get products into consumer's hands, not into retailers.