As more and more brands hop on the e-commerce train, brand protection has become a vital element to success. What’s more, ensuring your brand remains relevant in the minds of consumers is becoming increasingly difficult as e-commerce marketplaces have become ultra-competitive. Perhaps the most competitive is Amazon – the world’s No. 1 most visited online marketplace according to statista.com – where more than 700 thousand brands in over 20 countries have enrolled in the platform’s Brand Registry.
With a 37.8 per cent market share of e-commerce in the United States, there is a good reason why so many new brands are taking to Amazon. As e-commerce has become one of the most rapidly growing sectors in the global economy, Amazon has emerged as the top retailer. Amazon’s growth continues as the online giant’s net sales increased 15 per cent to $127.1 billion in Q3 2022.
As evidenced by the number of brands selling on Amazon and the company’s strong financials, e-commerce has created massive opportunities and new markets for businesses and consumers alike. With so much opportunity, however, comes increased risk.
As covered in previous GreyScout blogs, Amazon is a massive target for unauthorized 3P (third-party) selling, parallel imports, triangulation fraud, counterfeiting, and a wide range of other nefarious activities that can deal reputational damage to brands active on the marketplace and also lead to loss of 1P revenue.
While building a strong brand is essential, defending it against grey market activity and cyber criminals is equally important.
Thankfully, Amazon understands that protecting brands that use their platform is in their best interest. As part of the company’s commitment to delivering strong customer service, according to its 2022 Brand Protection Report, Amazon invested more than $900 million and employed more than 12,000 people to help protect both brands and consumers from counterfeiting, fraud, and other illegal and grey market activities.
What is Amazon Brand Protection and what are the tools provided?
Amazon Brand Protection provides a range of tools to combat counterfeiting, intellectual property (IP) rights violations, and other forms of fraud.
Amazon offers five programs with varying levels of protection for businesses selling on the platform: the Amazon Brand Registry, Transparency, Project Zero, Counterfeit Crimes Unit, and IP Accelerator. Each program provides a different set of features to help protect brands from various threats.
What is the Amazon Brand Registry?
The cornerstone of Amazon’s extensive suite of brand protection programs, the Amazon Brand Registry provides brand owners with a host of tools to prevent the misuse of logos, images, video, and written content. While not a mandatory element of selling on Amazon, listing a brand with the Brand Registry provides access to a range of automated brand protection tools to guard against IP infringement and other damaging activities free of charge.
The process for registering with the Amazon Brand Registry is simple. Brands with a pending or registered and active text-based or image-based trademark can create an account. From there, they need to provide proof that they are a legitimate entity associated with the product being registered (such as trademark registration records or other legal documentation).
Once completed, the registration is approved within a few days and brand owners can monitor the web for any activities that could be perceived as an infringement on their IP rights such as counterfeit sales or unauthorized use of their logo or images associated with their product line.
More information about registering on Amazon Brand Registry can be found here.
Monitoring Distribution Channels: Amazon Transparency
Creating and marketing a brand that resonates with consumers is important, but so is getting products to customers through a functioning supply chain. From selecting a distribution model to working with the right logistical partners, staying on top of your brand’s distribution strategy is of the utmost importance.
Amazon Transparency is a service that tracks products through the supply chain, from source to customer, using unique product identifiers and digital records.
The service’s core feature is its ability to track product history, including information about the source, transit, and destination of each item listed on the marketplace. This is done via a secure blockchain-based system that stores serialized product data securely. This data can be accessed by scanning the unique product identifiers affixed to each item.
Amazon Transparency also offers powerful analytics capabilities that provide detailed reporting on supply chain operations or production processes.
Tools to Protect IP Rights: Amazon Project Zero and IP Accelerator
When launching an e-commerce brand, a lot of creative energy is invested in designing a logo, creating a clever brand name, writing slogans and product descriptions, and producing other IPs. The protection of IP in the digital world has always been a challenge. What’s more, the rise of generative AI to write content and create graphics based on copyrighted content complicates issues further.
Amazon Project Zero seeks to combat e-commerce threats to IP by utilizing advanced technology to detect and remove suspected counterfeit items before they reach Amazon customers. Project Zero uses a combination of advanced machine learning algorithms coupled with Amazon’s proprietary algorithms to scan millions of product listings for potential counterfeits.
Brands can use self-service tools provided by Amazon such as “Product Serialization” which allows them to apply individual serial numbers to each product sold through Amazon to better track and protect their products from counterfeiting activities.
Adding further protection of registered IP, the Amazon IP Accelerator program includes assistance with patent searches, trademark searches, copyright registration, licensing agreements, trade secrets protections, and more.
The Accelerator provides brands with resources such as access to IP professionals who can provide legal advice on IP matters. Brands can also use the program to seek out guidance on how to structure licensing agreements for the use of their IP or guidance on how to protect products with a patent.
Enforcement: The Amazon Counterfeit Crime Unit
It’s no secret that counterfeiting is a serious issue on Amazon. Increasingly, the subject of counterfeit goods proliferating e-commerce marketplaces has found itself in the public eye.
For example, celebrity Harry Styles recently filed a lawsuit against Amazon and other marketplaces, alleging they were used to sell counterfeit products bearing his name. Amazon’s strictest response to counterfeiting crimes on its platform is the Counterfeit Crime Unit, a specialized law enforcement unit that works to investigate and prosecute serious IP crimes, including the production and distribution of counterfeit goods.
The unit is comprised of a multi-disciplinary team of police officers, federal agents, corporate investigators, financial analysts, lawyers, and other professionals who use cutting-edge technologies such as machine learning and data analytics to identify fraudulent activity on Amazon’s eCommerce marketplaces.
It also works closely with law enforcement agencies worldwide to investigate large-scale counterfeiting operations. In November, the unit worked with local authorities to identify three counterfeiting operations in China and seize more than 240,00 counterfeit items.
The Bottom Line
While Amazon provides a range of basic brand protection programs such as those highlighted above, brands should take a proactive approach towards brand protection that includes around-the-clock detection, monitoring, and enforcement.
Although the development of Amazon’s suite of tools and programs demonstrates a strong commitment by the platform to protect its brands and consumers, they alone do not provide adequate protection.
What’s needed to succeed as an e-commerce brand is online brand protection software such as GreyScout which works in tandem with Amazon’s brand protection solutions.
GreyScout online brand protection platform easily monitors online marketplaces in real-time to detect grey market and illegal activity as it happens to stay one step ahead of those looking to damage your brand reputation.
