This isn't going to work because companies will lie their pants off to prevent distribution. I've personally had false IP complaints from multiple billion dollar companies, which are submitted under penalty of perjury, and I know of other companies that do the same.
What you should do is buy up their entire stock (it's FBA, and seems like not a lot of stock) and file not as described complaints with notice@amazon and also cc seller performance, then return as wrong item.
https://digiday.com/marketing/amazon-grows-transparency-prog...
Now for the part that's not off topic: to remind myself how long ago I bought it, I just clicked on the product link from my order confirmation e-mail from Amazon. I landed at a listing for the product, but "Sold by suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" (not making the name up). That's not right I know for a fact that when I placed the order it was listed properly as "Sold by Elevation Lab". I just clicked around some more and eventually I got to the listing that is "sold by Elevation Lab" but both of those pages have the gray 'you bought this item on...' box at the top. That seems.... off that doesn't pass the sniff test.
But, as I said, from the outside, that report link does seem like a viable "option to fight back"; in reality, it's a customer support black hole.
Have you looked up Brand Gating too? My (admittedly limited) understanding is that Brand Registry is step #1 and Brand Gating is the next level beyond that: https://www.helium10.com/blog/selling-on-amazon/brand-gating...
In general, I think there's frustration for smaller companies and brands that Amazon (understandably) doesn't retain resources to support individually.
Somewhat perversely, someone claimed on the forums (I’ll try to add the link if I find the topic), that one way to get brand gated is to buy up the counterfeit products being sold under your listing/ASIN, and document and/or send them into Amazon. It seems that until you’re being widely counterfeited, there really is nothing you can do proactively.
Amazon has been an overall net positive for our company, but the difficulties of trying to get a knowledgeable person to answer pressing questions usually create headaches for me at least once a month. Even as a large volume seller through Amazon Vendor Central, we’ve been given boilerplate legalese about needing to provide photocopies of the certificate of our trademarks in order to initiate DMCA takedowns of stolen or copied images and text. As great as Amazon is for consumers, the vendor support can often make you feel like you’re howling at the wind.
The issue with the Amazon case management system is if you encounter a customer service rep who has no idea who you're talking about, there's no way to escalate the support case at all. There's no live person to talk to. So, you end up playing roulette, often having to submit the same case multiple times until you get a rep who is able to help.
you can probably get somewhere by messaging [email protected]
Apply to the brand registry with your trademark info and you’ll have access to tools to proactively protect your brand.
Amazon is taking this sort of behavior very seriously and has added systems in place to help prevent this.
In addition to the brand registry you might also want to check out their transparency program.
https://digiday.com/marketing/amazon-grows-transparency-prog...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/12/05/amazon-g...
Just doing simple image machine learning should get 90% of scammers.
He AWS team is great about this. Looking for abnormalities. Looking for posted AWS keys. Proactively. The retail guys need to get some of the cloud guy smarts. Or ethics. Either/or will help stop this.
I don’t sell, but I can barely buy from amazon because of all the scam copies and fake reviews.
Haven't ever read a single word from Amazon to reassure me (as a buyer) about counterfeits. At least nothing beyond completely cookie cutter PR stuff that my brain just dismisses.
Let's see some stats. Let's see some action plans. Let's get all these sellers' horror stories out of my various feeds. Where's all that?
Not sure if you're aware, but Amazon's doing pretty OK by all publicly available signs. To the extent what's bothering you is even a real issue, it's not bothering anyone else enough to stop them shopping on Amazon. I doubt Amazon feels much pressure to post action plans to satisfy the tiny minority of people who have strong opinions about this issue.
See also other shitty companies that made money.
? I mean it may be true that they will some day go out of business. In fact it's all but certain. But I don't think you could really say it's because of effect that is visible today.
What are people buying and receiving fakes of?
I still buy stuff on amazon because returns are very simple, but I got into habit of immediately returning anything which is not good enough. I feel that most of the stuff one can buy there is garbage.
Books, CD, electronics, baby products, stationary, personal care products including condoms, toys,...
Take a look at this cup. Would you know if Amazon sent you a fake if it's your only Yeti cup? http://www.wideopenspaces.com/fake-yeti-ramblers-on-the-rise...
Many/Most of the time it's going to be difficult to tell unless you have the real version already and do side by side comparison.
To get fancy you could compare against the millions of known frauds and apply that to new products.
The thing that bugs me is that they do nothing. This stupid “it’s all on you to register your brand and yadda yadda” would be cool if they also coupled that with a ton of effort and smarts to stamp out counterfeiters.
I mean they run mechanical Turk, they could just manually review shit.
They should keep a running log of how they think this is important and all the things they try.
There’s no machine learning to do. The only way to find the counterfeit is to inspect each shipment by hand vs a reference sample to determine if it’s legit.
This is basically what the Amazon transparency program is. Is tracks each item from manufacturer all the way through to your door with unique code scanned along the way. You can use the app to see where it came from.
If you’re interviewing sellers, what do you ask them in the interview? “Are you selling counterfeits?” What are your grounds for allowing them to list an item?
If you want to inspect a new listing, what do you want to inspect? Maybe you inspect the first shipment. Fine. People will figure that out and send a small first shipment of real items, then start sending fakes.
My point is that they aren’t doing anything. You point out a couple of edge conditions as a reason not to try. Even reducing fakes by 20% would be great.
If this cost Amazon money they would be trying to stop it.
There are literally multiple teams with lots of software engineers working on these problems.
Currently entry into brand registry is a requirement for these programs. You would be shocked to see the head count and money Amazon is spending in this area, they are investing heavily.
"18650" is a type of lithium battery and capacities above 4000 mah are technically impossible.
Usually the batteries with lower rated capacities are fake, too, but at least this would get rid of the most blatant scams.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Da...
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Da...
There are also many examples of fake power banks, but those have varying form factors, so you'd have to calculate the volume or check the weight to make sure it is technically impossible.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3...
When did this become an acceptable statement?
Counterfeits however, are difficult; somebody has to notice, and care that the thing is a counterfeit, and if this is the first time I'm buying one of these anchors, how am I to know how nice the seams are supposed to be? if it works, I'm happy.
To get around image section though, all you need is a real box of the thing. you can just buy a bunch of it and repackage, and sell the original separately.
(just for reference, the cloud guys are relying on us for a lot of their detection, not the other way around)
Why would any company spend money to decrease their revenue? I have yet to see one company that does not test the boundaries of the legally permissible to maximize profits.
As a buyer I want to know I can trust what I'm buying is what I believe I am buying --and sellers don't want their brands tarneshed. Once bitten twice shy.
It's why their customer service has always been recognized as one of the best.
"We do not enforce ... Detail Page Ownership ... Exclusive or Selective Distribution."
As long as the counterfeit is good enough, don't bother complaining:
"Other sellers can list their items for sale against pages that you have created or added your copyrighted images to. However, we do require sellers to list only against detail pages that exactly match their items. If you believe sellers are listing against detail pages that do not exactly match their items, we ask that you report the violation directly by using the contact us form."
Why do the counterfeiters get to use your own picture of your own product? Because Amazon claims the rights from you:
"Additionally, when you add your copyrighted image to a detail page, you grant Amazon and its affiliates a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right to exercise all rights of publicity over the material."
And that brand registry? Does it mean your brand is yours? No, it's just 'increased authority' ...
"increased authority over product listings with your brand name"
IANAL, but that sounds very thin. Maybe it would hold up under copyright law, but that seems dubious. What if the party agreeing to that contract doesn't have that right in the first place? But all this ignores trademark law. If that image contains a trademark and the trademark is used improperly, then the cause of action that the trademark owner has seems like it would have nothing to do with "publicity".
A remedy that is impossible to get in practice is no remedy at all.
"Suzi Hixon - Private Label Lawyer - Providing strategic business and legal guidance for the proactive protection and enforcement of your Amazon listings and private label brands."
How bad must be the Amazon problem be that there's an industry dedicated to trying to deal with it?
If you sell on Amazon and also sell elsewhere and someone got their hands on a legitimate item, they can sell using your images.
Once upon a time, I could go to amazon.com and buy things from Amazon. I trusted Amazon to sell legit goods. But now if I go to amazon.com, it's bizarrely difficult to buy from Amazon, and a large fraction of the goods sold seem to be junk. And Amazon presumably made considerably more money selling things that they sourced themselves.
So why doesn't Amazon go back closer to their original model? I wouldn't mind seeing a strong built-in preference for genuine Amazon listings and a very clear indication that I'm about to order from some random-ass seller.
(Also, I'm quite surprised that there hasn't been a giant trademark infringement and/or copyright infringement lawsuit against Amazon? Amazon.com de facto sells all kinds of counterfeit goods. I wouldn't be surprised if a judge wouldn't let them hide behind the "it wasn't us -- it was a third party" defense.)
> The author of this article clearly doesn't know much about selling on Amazon
Or alternatively, maybe they know more than you do? Especially since the core of your advice is "use the Brand Registry" which the post already mentioned and which, according to your own link doesn't even do what you claim?
We gave up and just tell customers anything with our brand on amazon is a fake.
Source: I’m a seller on Amazon and I actually bought one of these counterfeit headphone holders.
I too sell on Amazon, and I registered my brand with Amazon. I also have a design patent for the main object I’m selling.
Direct counterfeits can get blocked, although you have to send an email to each marketplace (I’m in Europe), and then Amazon stops the sales but doesn’t remove the listing.
But listing hijacking is hard/impossible to get rid of. I have a hijacker who sells a different product (different shape, material, color, and quantities) who’s been sitting on my listing for over 2 weeks, and Amazon won’t do anything about it. « Seller performance » wrtites back canned emails saying that they don’t communicate the result of their investigations... one doubts there’s much investigation going on.
Brand registry is absolutely useless.
The main problem is, Amazon thinks about its marketplace as something where multiple sellers compete on price selling the same items. It doesn’t want unique listing for unique products by unique sellers/manufacturers. It doesn’t like the idea, and it will never spend ressources to enforce it.
This is in fact a little unfair (can't edit anymore so I reply to myself). In my experience Amazon employees are very courteous and want to help; the problem is, they usually don't know how the system works and can only read back policies (that are otherwise available to anyone -- we can read!)
Maybe it's just a lack of training (not their fault), or maybe nobody really knows how all the parts of the system work together. Anyway it's incredibly difficult to get a clear answer.
And seller performance is the worst, because they never answer or do any follow-up.
Sad to see this poor level of attention to a well written customer complaint from Amazon.
This is often false. Counterfeit merchandise "may be destroyed" according to Amazon's help docs, and often is, from my experience.
So, I completely agree with the headline of this article. The whole listing process was catered to listing existing products, and the policies did not make sense for sellers who completely control their product.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_6?url=search-alias...
And since Amazon profits from these third party sellers they are complicit.
Wishpower is the brand, yet Chrome logo. Supports Airplay, I thought that was Apple exclusive? 2.3 stars.
Does seem odd to me, unless by some coincidence they licensed the Chrome logo from Google and Airplay from Apple and then also happened to get badly reviewed.
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B075KDML13/ref=acr_se...
Let me find the first 10 links matching "Chromecast". [1]
ONLY the 1st and 3rd links don't have misleading/deliberately confusing or outright stolen trademarks on them (but they aren't chromecasts). Examples include the "G" on 5 and 6 in the font Google uses or the Youtube logo on 7. Examples of outright stolen trademarks include links 2, 4, 8, 9 and 10 all have the Chrome logo.
For completeness, the (only) actual link to Chromecasts on amazon is here [3].
The first and third links are weird, as in they're an entirely different product category from a Chromecast. Why are they even in there ? They are very much not chromecasts.
I would like to point out that if you are looking for a Chromecast, ALL of those products will be sorely disappointing. 1 and 3 don't even support streaming web content to them in any way, and all the others are chinese wireless display mirroring devices, some are even low-res versions.
None of them have anywhere near the compatibility or functionality that Chromecast provides. If you buy these and expect them to do what a Chromecast does, you'll be sorely disappointed.
If this is what happens to Google, imagine what will happen to you on Amazon to the inventors of fidget spinners, or those cubes. The web is full of articles and forum complaints about fake products on amazon. Link to the trend [2].
Links when searching "Chromecast"
1. Fire TV stick with Alexa ...
2. Wifi Display Dongle,Wishpower HDMI 1080P Mini Display Receiver TV Miracast DLNA AirMirror Airplay for IOS/Android/Windows/Mac
3. Roku Express | 5X more powerful HD Streaming (2017)
4. WiFi Display Dongle,Wishpower 2018 WiFi Wireless 1080P Mini Display Receiver HDMI TV Miracast DLNA Airplay for IOS/Android/Windows/Mac(New Version)
5. 2018 Cymocho G5 Wireless Wifi Display Dongle, HDMI 1080P TV Receiver Adapter, Support Google Chrome for YouTube Miracast Airplay DLNA TV Stick for Android/ Mac/ iOS / Windows
6. Wecast E68 Wireless Wifi Display Dongle TV Receiver Adapter 1080P Full HD support Google Chromecast for Netflix YouTube miracast airplay DLNA TV Stick for Android/ Mac/ iOS / Windows
7. 1080P HDMI Adapter Wireless Display, PTView Miracast Dongle, 2.4G Streaming Media Share Player, Mirroring Receiver TV Stick, Airplay Dina For iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Samsung, LG, Android, Smart Phones
8. WiFi Wireless Display Dongle Receiver 1080P HDMI TV Stick Miracast Media Streamer for Phone TV Support Miracast & Airplay & DLNA
9. WIFI Display Dongle, WiFi Wireless 1080P Mini Display Receiver HDMI TV Miracast DLNA Airplay for IOS/Android
10. Miracast Wireless Display Adapter,Iphone Dongle 1080P Hdmi,TV Receiver Stick,Toneseas Streaming Media Player,Airplay DLNA for Ipad Macbook Laptop Samsung Android Smart Phones - Business Gift
[1] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3...
[2] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=amazon%2...
Curious that Amazon enforce their ban on Chromecasts so much better than their ban on counterfeits.
When I think "counterfeit", I think listings like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008ALAAV0/
Manufacturer: Apple. Title: Apple. Reviews: "arrived broken", "opened it up and it was fake", "Apple said it was a fake", etc.
> There is something extremely simple Amazon could do about it. If you have a registered brand in the Brand Registry and don't sell the product wholesale - there could be one box to check for that.
The author of this article clearly doesn't know much about selling on Amazon, because what he is asking for is possible. It's called the Amazon Brand Registry. You can contact the infringment team using the details here and initiate the process of getting your brand / ASIN locked so that other people can't sell it without your permission: https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement
Also check this out: https://services.amazon.com/brand-registry.html
If you have a popular product then counterfeiters are unfortunately inevitable, but you do have options to fight back and stop them.
There is also Brand Gating which is a little harder to get. Look up ASIN or Brand Gating for information. Basically you can order the counterfeit product and report it to Amazon. It can cost a couple thousand in legal fees to register your brand and get all the paperwork unless you are capable of doing it all yourself, but it is possible.