The Amazon Brand Protection Services You Need in 2023
As an experienced Amazon seller and account management consultant, brand protection is one of the most important issues I advise clients on. The threats from hijackers, counterfeiters and other unfair competition on Amazon can quickly destroy your business if you don‘t have the right protections in place.
In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll walk you through the brand protection landscape on Amazon, the top services you need, proactive best practices, and expert guidance for handling issues like hijackers and false infringement claims. My goal is to help you fully safeguard your brand on Amazon so you can focus on growing your business, not constantly fighting fires.
Why Amazon Brand Protection Should Be Your Top Priority
Consider these troubling statistics:
- Over 90% of Amazon high-risk product categories are impacted by counterfeit and hijacked listings (Source)
78% of brands say counterfeits negatively impact their revenue (Source)
53% of sellers worry about competitors stealing their listings or content (Source)
As an Amazon seller, you operate in a massive, highly competitive marketplace driven by data, automation, and complex algorithms. While this environment creates huge opportunities, it also enables unethical players to attack legitimate brands through:
- Hijacking: Malicious actors steal sellers‘ listings by creating counterfeit or unauthorized versions of their products. They often edit the content and images to go undetected. This diverts sales and damages brand reputation.
Counterfeiting: Fake or knockoff versions of branded products undermine public trust, steal sales through lower prices, and can completely tank a brand if quality problems emerge.
Biased reviews: Competitors or purchased services flood listings with positive or negative fake reviews to manipulate perceptions of a product. This significantly sways buying decisions.
False infringement claims: Dishonest sellers report competitors for fake intellectual property violations to sabotage their business. Even false claims can lead to suspended listings or accounts.
In my experience managing seller accounts, no brand is immune from these threats on Amazon. Without proactive brand protection, you leave yourself vulnerable to potentially catastrophic damage from hijackers, counterfeiters and other unethical attacks.
This guide will explore the most effective brand protection services and strategies I recommend to completely safeguard your Amazon business.
The 5 Critical Amazon Brand Services You Need
Amazon provides a robust set of tools and services to help brands take control of their intellectual property and defend against infringement. Based on my experience, these are the five most critical for bulletproofing your business:
1. Brand Registry
The Amazon Brand Registry gives official brand owners access to special tools for managing listings and protecting products. I consider it the cornerstone of any brand protection strategy.
Once registered, you gain powerful abilities like:
- Search and reporting to proactively identify potential infringement
- Automated monitoring that alerts you to changes in listings
- The authority to directly remove counterfeit listings yourself
- Customizing product pages with enhanced branding and content
- Access to exclusive marketing and advertising options
Brand Registry eligibility requires an active trademark and Amazon‘s verification process. I advise all clients to pursue registration, even if trademarks are still in-progress.
2. Project Zero
Project Zero provides automated, 24/7 monitoring to detect counterfeit listings and immediately remove them. Powerful machine learning algorithms identify telltale signs of brand infringement based on data provided by Brand Registry members.
Specific benefits include:
- Proactive detection of over 85% of dangerous counterfeit listings
- Immediate, self-service removals – no need to wait for Amazon
- Product serialization to confirm authenticity of units sold
- High accuracy with minimal risk of removing legitimate listings
Enrolling in Project Zero adds a robust layer of algorithmic protection on top of manual efforts.
3. Transparency
Amazon Transparency allows you to apply unique serial codes to your products and packaging. Customers can scan these codes to authenticate items, providing definitive proof of counterfeiting.
Transparency codes:
- Enable customers to instantly self-verify authenticity, building trust
- Deter counterfeiters who can‘t duplicate the randomized codes
- Provide concrete evidence of infringement to submit to Amazon
- Are difficult for hijackers to edit out of images
Counterfeits of coded products are rejected up to 80% more frequently (Source).
4. Enhanced Listing Content
Well-optimized, high-quality listings are essential for brand protection. They make your products stand out as authoritative and "official" while deterring content theft.
Listing best practices include:
- Detailed copy and bullet points communicating your product‘s value
- High-resolution, lifestyle product images shot on white backgrounds
- Your brand and product names prominently featured
- Consistent branding and messaging aligned with your website/ads
I always advise focusing heavily on content and SEO optimization for every product listing. This makes your listings harder to manipulate or counterfeit.
5. Proactive Customer Service
Responding to questions and reviews signals that you are the true brand owner and care about customers. It also provides opportunities to address suspicious reviews that could indicate an attack.
Smart customer service tips:
- Thank buyers for positive reviews and feedback
- Quickly address negative reviews – apologize, troublshoot, and make things right
- Monitor spikes in reviews or unusual patterns that may be from competitors
- Report obviously fake or purchased positive reviews
With these five brand protection services, you can control your listings, detect potential infringements, confirm authenticity of products, optimize content, and connect with customers. This creates a robust defense against brand attacks.
4 Proactive Strategies To Bolster Your Defenses
While Amazon‘s tools provide powerful protection, you also need to take proactive measures to fully safeguard your brand:
1. Register trademarks, copyrights and patents
Pursuing official intellectual property registration prevents infringement and makes you eligible for Brand Registry. Priorities include:
- Trademarks: Protect your business and product names, taglines, and logos.
- Copyrights: Cover product photos, videos, marketing materials, and other creative IP.
- Patents: Inventors and manufacturers should patent innovations and technologies.
IP registration provides legal ownership you can leverage if infringement occurs.
2. Analyze metrics for unusual changes
Routinely analyze your seller account and listing metrics for anomalies that may indicate an attack:
- Sudden drops in sales, traffic, or search ranking
- Spikes or drops in reviews or ratings
- Changes in Buy Box percentage or price competitiveness
Dig into anything unusual – it may reveal a hijacker diverting your sales or reviews.
3. Conduct test buys
When you spot a suspicious listing, buy the product to verify authenticity. Test buys provide definitive proof to report counterfeits confidently.
4. Monitor competitor activities
Frequently check your brand, product names, and ASINs for potentially infringing listings. Watch for:
- Unknown sellers offering identical products
- Listings with similar titles, images or strange reviews
You can also set up automated alerts through Brand Registry and tools like IO Scout. Ongoing vigilance is key.
My 5 Recommendations for Handling Amazon Hijackers
Listing hijackers are one of the top threats brands face on Amazon. If you experience this, here are the steps I advise to reclaim control of your listing:
1. Collect evidence: Use Brand Registry tools to gather data on the infringement – the ASIN, seller name, images, listings, etc. Make a test buy if you can.
2. Report the violation: Submit an official infringement complaint through Seller Central with all details and evidence. Pursue a retraction if you receive a counter-notice.
3. Follow up: Verify Amazon removed the listing. If not, re-submit the report and provide additional supporting details. Persistently push for the removal.
4. Implement prevention: Optimize your listing content, apply transparency codes, drive external traffic to improve rankings. Make your product harder to hijack.
5. Monitor closely: Check frequently for that ASIN/product to prevent relisting. Consider automated alerts and an external service to monitor continuously.
With persistent follow-up and Gathering air-tight evidence is key. I find clearly documenting infringements through test buys and screenshots convinces Amazon to act swiftly to remove listings and disable dishonest accounts.
How To Avoid False Infringement Claims
While relatively uncommon, false infringement claims can significantly damage your account. Here are my best practices to minimize risk:
- Only contact other sellers with strong evidence of infringement. Never make unfounded complaints.
Ensure your products and listings don‘t closely resemble others in ways that could be called "copycat". Differentiate yourself.
Build up your brand‘s reputation and prominence through advertising, content, and customer satisfaction. Make your value and ownership obvious.
If you do receive a claim:
- Politely, but firmly contest it if you believe it‘s false. Provide evidence supporting your position.
Submit Amazon‘s official retraction request form.
Consider contacting Amazon to investigate abuse of their reporting system.
Document everything and persistently defend yourself against false allegations. With the right evidence and approach, Amazon will ultimately reject unfounded claims.
Why Expert Guidance Is Crucial for Brand Protection
As you can see, fully protecting your brand on Amazon requires significant time, expertise, and meticulous effort. It means constantly monitoring for threats across a catalog of products and taking coordinated action when infringements occur.
This is an overwhelming workload most sellers can‘t effectively manage alone while also focussing on critical business priorities like product development, marketing and sales.
Based on my experience, sellers achieve far stronger protection and save countless hours by partnering with an expert Amazon consultancy. A dedicated team provides:
- 24/7 monitoring to identify issues immediately
- Ongoing management of your Brand Registry account
- Rapid responses to remove counterfeits and defend against invalid claims
- Regular audits and optimization of all your listings
- In-depth knowledge of Amazon‘s seller policies and inner workings
- Tools for tracking competitors, reviews, and changes across your account
With an experienced team safeguarding your catalog, you can devote your time to creating great products and growing your business, not playing whack-a-mole against the latest attack.
Brand protection assistance provides a smart leverage of resources that directly protects revenue and your brand‘s reputation on Amazon.
Conclusion
Selling on Amazon comes with constant threats of brand hijacking, counterfeiting, and false claim sabotage. Ignoring these risks can have catastrophic consequences for your business.
By closely following Amazon‘s suite of Brand Registry tools, maximizing Project Zero‘s automated protections, implementing transparency codes, optimizing listings, and working with an expert consultancy, you can confidently defend your catalog against unfair attacks.
Proactive brand protection lets you focus on customers and strategic growth, not internal fires. I highly recommend every seller prioritize these best practices. Your future success on Amazon depends on it!
I hope this guide provides an in-depth look at the brand protection landscape on Amazon and clear direction for safeguarding your business. Please reach out if you need any guidance getting protections in place for your catalog and account. I‘m always happy to help fellow sellers navigate Amazon successfully.
