PROTECT YOUR BRAND INTEGRITY FROM UNAUTHORIZED AMAZON SELLERS
Selling on Amazon comes with its own set of challenges. It isn’t an easy ride even when nobody’s actively trying to send you off the rail, and there are plenty of greedy opportunists ready to do so.
Unauthorized sellers can bring you a whole heap of problems, going as far as counterfeiting goods and selling them as authentic. The potential damage is immense, and it is in your best interest to not let unauthorized sellers parasitize on your success. We can assist you in these efforts.
HOW AN UNAUTHORIZED SELLER CAN SPOIL YOUR REPUTATION
An unauthorized seller is a third-party seller who lists and sells a brand’s products on Amazon without having received permission or authorization from the brand owner or manufacturer. Since unauthorized sellers operate without the consent of the brand owners, it is challenging for the owners to control the distribution and representation of their products on one of the world’s largest online marketplaces.
WHY ARE UNAUTHORIZED SELLERS A THREAT?
Somebody is selling your products without your permission. This fact alone should be enough to elicit righteous anger and demand for justice. But there is no need to act on emotions, for there are plenty of logic-driven reasons to address this issue upon discovery.
Violation of Brand Policies
Unauthorized sellers don’t sign agreements and thus are not required to abide by any of your policies and standards. This applies to all the policies that you have, beginning with the way you handle customer service to pricing your products. As a result, they can hinder all your relationships, including the one with Amazon itself.
Misleading Product Details
All listings are Amazon’s property, and it allows anyone who’s selling a product to alter them. Unauthorized sellers might use inaccurate product descriptions, images and titles, bringing about confusion among customers. When the product received does not match the expectations set by the misleading listings, customers resent it.
Quality Control Issues
Since unauthorized sellers are not bound by your quality control standards, they are free to skimp on it. As a result, there’s an increased risk of customers receiving products that are damaged, defective, or simply counterfeit. This usually leads to a higher rate of customer complaints and returns, which leads to a whole new problem.
Reputation Damage
By distributing counterfeit or poor-quality products, unauthorized sellers spoil customer experiences. What you get from this is bad reviews and tarnished reputation, as consumers usually don’t distinguish between authorized and unauthorized sources when making a purchase. This inevitably causes another domino to fall.
Impact on Authorized Sellers
Another problem is the deterioration of relationships with authorized dealers in several ways. Gray sellers create an uneven playing field for authorized dealers who adhere to your pricing policies but have to compete with the lower prices offered by unauthorized sellers. Such situations unavoidably erode the trust and loyalty between you and your partners.
Missed Profit
Unauthorized sellers often sell products at lower prices than those set by authorized dealers. As such, they have a chance to win the Featured Offer and steal sales from you and your authorized dealers, since all of you use the same listings to sell your products. You are basically giving away sale opportunities to dishonest people.
CLASSIFICATION OF UNAUTHORIZED SELLERS
Unauthorized sellers are a menace that steals brands’ intellectual property and sales bringing nothing but harm in return. However, not all of them are equally harmful and easy to deal with. Here’s how the distribution goes.
EASY TO DEAL WITH
Amazon has a strict Anti-Counterfeiting policy and helps brands deal with counterfeiters more readily.
HARD TO DEAL WITH
The products they sell are genuine (yours), or at least appear to be so. For this reason, Amazon does not perceive such sellers as violators and won’t be too cooperative in dealing with them, unless sufficient proof is presented.
Counterfeit Sellers
Engage in selling fake or imitation products under the guise of genuine brand names. These sellers exploit your product pages, often abusing the established reputation of your brand to sell their counterfeit goods to unsuspecting customers. This not only infringes on intellectual property rights but also poses significant risks to consumers who may end up purchasing inferior or unsafe products, believing them to be authentic.
Unauthorized Sellers
Sell your products on Amazon without having obtained your permission. These sellers might source their inventory through a wide array of means, be it purchasing items via retail arbitrage or liquidation sales, sometimes even without spending money at all. There’s no guarantee that the products they sell meet your quality standards, so customer dissatisfaction is a likely ramification.
MAP Violators
Exploit pricing flexibility to gain a competitive advantage (both authorized and unauthorized sellers). By offering products at lower prices, they attract more customers, undermining the brand’s pricing structure and devaluing the product in the eyes of consumers. There is also the issue of reduced profit margins for yourself and authorized sellers who comply with the MAP policy (and might be tempted to stop doing so).
FOR THE ULTIMATE PROTECTION FROM UNAUTHORIZED SELLERS, CONSIDER ENROLLING IN THE BRAND REGISTRY PROGRAM.
Amazon Brand Registry is an indispensable tool that grants sellers benefits that are too good to pass. In terms of brand protection, it gives you complete control over your listings and gives you the authority to decide who can change their content. In addition to that, Amazon starts considering you as a full-fledged brand and becomes more cooperative. You can also monitor all the sellers that sell your products, which makes identifying unauthorized ones much easier.
HOW TO DEAL WITH UNAUTHORIZED SELLERS ON AMAZON
The dealing strategies are often multistage and pretty time-consuming. To deal with counterfeiters, it’s usually enough to make a test buy and submit a complaint to Amazon that the product is “Not as Described.” If there is an authorized seller who violated your MAP policy, you can settle this issue with them directly. However, for those sellers who never contacted you in any way, things are more complicated.
Contact the seller directly
Contact the seller directly, notifying them of their infringement and the potential consequences of continuing to sell your products unlawfully. Give them two days to end their operations. This is a necessary step you’ll refer to later on if the situation doesn’t get better. Integration with our Brand Growth Accelerator can make this step much easier, since we have a dedicated tool – Unauthorized Sellers Monitoring.
Publish the list of authorized dealers
Publish the list of authorized dealers on your website and add a notice to the Amazon listing that the products sold by unauthorized dealers are non-returnable and are not covered by any warranty.
Terminate relationships with unauthorized sellers
If you have any direct business relationships with these unauthorized sellers (e.g., they were previously authorized or are obtaining goods through a distributor), terminate these relationships and stop shipments to discourage further unauthorized sales.
Enroll in Amazon's Transparency program
Consider enrolling in Amazon’s Transparency program, which uses unique codes to verify authenticity, making it harder for unauthorized sellers to sell counterfeit or unauthorized goods.
Report unauthorized sellers
Report unauthorized sellers to Amazon, highlighting that they cannot offer the official warranty that comes with your products, which misleads customers. File another complaint and inform Amazon that the seller is using your trademark without permission, which is a violation of intellectual property rights and Amazon’s policies.
Take legal actions
If Amazon is reluctant to help you and things get out of hand, as a last resort, you can take legal action against persistent unauthorized sellers. This involves suing them for trademark infringement, unauthorized use of intellectual property, and any other applicable charges, which can result in significant legal costs and penalties for the unauthorized sellers.
LET US HELP
YOU GET RID OF UNAUTHORIZED SELLERS AND PROTECT YOUR BRAND
We will help you enroll in the Brand Registry Program and handle the unauthorized sellers on your behalf
