I think it's ironic that you're saying he has to pay to run his business safely, when Amazon's set things up this way specifically because they don't want to pay to run their business safely.

It's a little outrageous that a 3rd party can come take over your storefront without any avenue to challenge.

It’s not “your storefront”. Your listing is only there at Amazon’s discretion and subject to whatever arbitrary and capricious and erratically enforced rules they choose to make up. That’s the deal you accept if you choose to make Amazon (or AliExpress or Facebook or whoever) a critical part of your business.

There is nothing wrong with Cliff's store front: https://www.kleinbottle.com

The problem is in Amazon's storefront, and there millions of sellers are operating in the same space, so doing some due diligence is required. If Cliff could just seize ownership of his storefront from a thief, why couldn't a thief seize it from Cliff? The solution is to register a proper trademark.

Like it or not, the world is messy, and it costs to keep it clean. Registering a trademark is like buying locks for your home and vehicle, and buying soap to wash your clothes, and changing the oils in your machines.

This logic assumes that it's cheap to get a trademark, whereas the parent says it'll cost $2000.

This leaves small hobby stores like Cliff's with no practical defense against scams like this if they've only made a few thousand in profits through amazon sales, especially if they don't have that cash on hand (and suddenly lose their amazon revenue stream!)

Like it's easy to say "well you should have trademarked your product" after the fact, but very few people have even heard of this scam when it happens to them.

It's interesting that you say "some due diligence is required" and go on to put the burden of that diligence on Cliff, rather than the creator of the marketplace.

It should be pointed out that in a country like India or China it IS often the marketplaces legal responsibility to prevent counterfeit merchandise from being sold in their market. If you go into many malls for example there are signs up on the walls with a hotline to report people selling counterfeit merchandise. In India, they have a service you can contact that enforces returns/refunds of any counterfeit item that you purchase from a vendor (though usually mentioning the hotline and threatening to call it is more than enough to convince the vendor to give you a refund).

The solution is for Amazon to be less horrid.

There really are no polite words to describe business practices.

Stop buying from Amazon. Quite easy actually.

Exactly, stop buying from Amazon.

There a software company running a software market, all the power is in there hands, and they choose to do nothing.

Why should anyone be able to seize anyone else's Amazon listing without thorough human review by an Amazon employee? This seems like it would be a non-issue on a sane platform.

Except selling Klein bottles is a hobby, his actual business is teaching.

Oh yes, Speeder.

Thank you!

       -Cliff

I'm not sure why the parent was downvoted. The trademark scheme was built to make marketplaces more efficient, by giving producers a carve out in the conversation--a word or phrase or logo--so that they and consumers and distributors can engage together confidently with some bright line rules to work with.

The alternative is anarchy, and much more expensive then filing for a trademark if you want to sell in the marketplace. Like insurance, everyone that wants to be in the market pays a little, so that it makes it easier to avoid something like this.