Strategy for Counterfeit Sellers On My Listing
I run three different brands on Amazon with three different seller accounts. I watch the seller forums closely. All of my brands are enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry.
Lately, across all three businesses, I have been having issues with counterfeit sellers listing inventory for sale using my listing and undercutting my price so that they get the featured offer.Pretty much all of my sales go away, the customer gets a counterfeit item, and then I inevitably get a bad review from the customer who thought they bought my product but actually received a fake, counterfeit item. I can see these sellers are always located in China.
Other than purchasing the item, waiting a month for it to come, and then reporting a violation for each individual seller for every ASIN they are undercutting me on...is there any way for Amazon to help with this? This is absolutely terrible for both Amazon and myself. If this is not resolved, customers are going to stop trusting buying anything on Amazon.
For one of my brands, the trademark is registered so I can submit a violation through Brand Registry. I have ordered the product and confirmed it is counterfeit junk.
For one of my other brands, we are enrolled in brand registry BUT our trademark is pending for another month or so. It is not registered. I have conducted multiple test buys but I know I can’t submit a violation through brand registry because my trademark is not fully registered yet.
I also want to know…how can I disincentivize these counterfeit sellers from selling on my listing? Should I mark my price down as low as I can stomach so I squeeze all of their profit out too? Should I close my listing so they can’t sell the ASIN? I would like to know any and all ways to make life as difficult as possible for these scammers. I also want to make sure my customers don’t receive a junk product because ultimately that review comes back to my listing.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Strategy for Counterfeit Sellers On My Listing
I run three different brands on Amazon with three different seller accounts. I watch the seller forums closely. All of my brands are enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry.
Lately, across all three businesses, I have been having issues with counterfeit sellers listing inventory for sale using my listing and undercutting my price so that they get the featured offer.Pretty much all of my sales go away, the customer gets a counterfeit item, and then I inevitably get a bad review from the customer who thought they bought my product but actually received a fake, counterfeit item. I can see these sellers are always located in China.
Other than purchasing the item, waiting a month for it to come, and then reporting a violation for each individual seller for every ASIN they are undercutting me on...is there any way for Amazon to help with this? This is absolutely terrible for both Amazon and myself. If this is not resolved, customers are going to stop trusting buying anything on Amazon.
For one of my brands, the trademark is registered so I can submit a violation through Brand Registry. I have ordered the product and confirmed it is counterfeit junk.
For one of my other brands, we are enrolled in brand registry BUT our trademark is pending for another month or so. It is not registered. I have conducted multiple test buys but I know I can’t submit a violation through brand registry because my trademark is not fully registered yet.
I also want to know…how can I disincentivize these counterfeit sellers from selling on my listing? Should I mark my price down as low as I can stomach so I squeeze all of their profit out too? Should I close my listing so they can’t sell the ASIN? I would like to know any and all ways to make life as difficult as possible for these scammers. I also want to make sure my customers don’t receive a junk product because ultimately that review comes back to my listing.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
6 respostas
Seller_UglmhRe9s4CPu
@Blake_Amazon@Dougal_Amazon please send this along to any of your colleagues who will listen or help. I really believe this is a big problem on Amazon right now. Amazon needs to maintain their reputation and integrity and stand up for sellers with great feedback and great history over counterfeit sellers with terrible feedback and no history on the platform!!!
Sandy_Amazon
Hello @Seller_UglmhRe9s4CPu
My name is Sandy from the Community Manager Team and I would like to provide some guidance on reporting IP infringement that will hopefully answer the questions you raised in this post.
For reporting violations in Brand Registry, I recommend route if your trademark is already registered with the trademark office. (not in pending status) I mention this since you do not want to have a ton of "not accepted" complaints and that has been the cause of some Sellers having the ability to utilize this tool suspended or revoked and an appeal being required to have that reinstated.
If you log into Brand Registry and click on "submission history," and the the date range "6 months," you will see your acceptance rate of complaint submissions.
I did review your submissions but noticed that you mentioned you have 2 brands on Amazon but only saw 2 in your account and both of those were pending registration.
If your trademark is pending and you completed a test buy, I would advise you to use the Report Abuse tool until your trademark is registered, and select: The product received is different than the product on the detail page (different version, model or product)
When reporting these cases, I advise you provide specifics to how the product is violating different from the detail page after you receive the test buy.
For example, you can state that the material is different, but be sure to mention how it is different.
Ex: Material is listed as metal on product detail page, but received item was plastic.
Ex: Product detail page shows length of product X but approved product is Y.
I am happy to provide any additional guidance as needed.
Best,
Sandy
Seller_UglmhRe9s4CPu
Hi Sandy,Thanks for your response, I really appreciate it. I just am seeing this now. We are still dealing with this issue.
Do you find that it is a lot more effective using the Brand Registry Report a Violation (for trademarks that have been registered)?Our trademark is set to be registered by middle of November, so I am hoping that will speed things along.
Some of our "Report Abuse" submissions have been successful, and the counterfeit sellers are removed, but immediately a new one pops up, which I believe is probably the same counterfeit seller who creates a new seller account.
It has been a really difficult month or so...we have had to sell product at a loss in order to stop the counterfeit seller from getting the Featured Offer. We don't want to receive bad customer reviews for the product when the counterfeit seller ships them a counterfeit product.
Sandy_Amazon
Hi @Seller_UglmhRe9s4CPu
I cannot mention which too is better than the other since they are used for different types of infringement.
However, I can say that report a violation tool in brand registry is quicker to resolve situations with infringement if you have a valid complaint and registered trademark.
Ultimately, Amazon's policies allow any seller to list items for sale on an ASIN so long as the intellectual property accurately represents the item being sold and has not been illegally reproduced. This includes intellectual property for which you are the rights owner.
In addition, Amazon respects a manufacturer's right to enter into exclusive distribution agreements for its products. However, violations of such agreements do not constitute intellectual property rights infringement. As the enforcement of these agreements is a matter between the manufacturer and the retailers, it would not be appropriate for Amazon to assist in enforcement activities.
Regards,
Sandy
Seller_UglmhRe9s4CPu
Hi Sandy,
Thanks for your response.
The sellers are not selling legitimate products that are accurately depicted by my listing. They're selling cheap, fake, knock offs that are not in the right packaging, are not engraved with my logo, and do not come with my packaging materials. I have not entered into any agreement with anyone to sell my products.
In my view, this is a massive problem for Amazon. Look at it from the customer's perspective. They purchase through my listing, and receive a fake, counterfeit product that does not look or feel like the product they thought they purchased.
This is going to lead to an increased number of returns, and dissatisfied customers who may reconsider their Amazon Prime memberships if this becomes a bigger issue. It is becoming a bigger issue, too, I run multiple brands on Amazon and multiple brands and multiple ASINs are experiencing this right now.
Furthermore, since these fake, counterfeit sellers are located in China, they are not utilizing Amazon FBA, so Amazon does not get to capitalize on that side of the business either. Instead, they only get the referral fee for the fake, counterfeit sale.
Please, someone, help me to permanently remove these sellers from my listings and stop them from popping up the next day. In Amazon's defense, some of them have been taken down...but they come back the next day. I believe Amazon needs to make it HARDER to start a seller account. Not overly so, but someone we must stop these fake, counterfeit sellers from creating seller account after seller account after seller account with the sole intention of knocking off products and selling counterfeits to Amazon prime customers.
All I do these days is buy test orders every single day and wait a month for them to arrive so I can report a violation legitimately.
@Blake_Amazon @Dougal_Amazon
