How to Use Specific Packaging to Stop Unauthorized Sellers on Amazon & Protect Your Brand
Michelle Maldonado – Thank you for joining me for another informative video on brand protection.
Let’s get right down to the topics that sellers want to hear most about, and for today, it’s using Amazon-specific packaging.
So, I will throw the question out there and CJ, Rob jump in. Whoever can answer it first gets the prize.
CJ Rosenbaum – Amazon considers itself to be extremely unique, the best in the world, and Amazon likes things that are Amazon-specific. So, by creating Amazon-specific packaging, brands and private label sellers are really riding the horse in the direction that it’s going for feeding right into Amazon’s gigantic ego, and it helps brand protection tremendously.
Rob Segall – Amazon does prefer to see their own packaging. Amazon likes to feel special and know that their programs are being implemented and sellers are cooperating with their rules and policies. But from a brand protection point of view, having specific packaging just for Amazon that only you can have, helps you eliminate unauthorized sellers in a way as well.
If you have packaging as the manufacturer of your own goods or as a private label seller, you’re able to make sure that no one else can match your product listing details. Even if you sell the same product in stores and someone wants to do retail arbitrage and join your listing. What they’re buying in the store won’t be the same as the packaging the consumer receives when buying on Amazon. That’s confusion and also trademark infringement.
Amazon-specific packaging helps sellers make trademark complaints when unauthorized sellers join their listings.
Michelle Maldonado – If it does happen, what can a seller do to remedy the situation?
CJ Rosenbaum – Well, what can be done as you point out to Amazon that the hijacker is not delivering to the consumer what the consumer expects. So, the consumer expects to receive the product on Amazon, which will include your specific Amazon packaging. And that difference is very important to Amazon. Now, does it really matter whether this mouse, whether it comes in Amazon packaging or not? Is it the same mouse? Reality is it is the same exact product, but again, we’re talking about brand protection specifically on Amazon and it works. If you can use specific Amazon packaging, even if the product is exactly the same, it works to protect yourselves on Amazon. And as Rob was talking about a few minutes ago, you can also flesh out legitimate trademark issues for that hijacker
Michelle Maldonado – And for the seller who wants to protect his/her brands, how would they even know that there are illegitimate sellers out there and perhaps even jeopardizing how they’re presenting the brand and how the packaging goes out? How do they even find that out?
Rob Segall – The first thing that you’ll notice is if you’re using specific packaging and a seller joins your listing, you’re going to wonder where they got it from, because you don’t think they got it from you. So, if we were monitoring the brand for the seller, the first thing we would do is place the test buy while simultaneously sending our first cease and desist letter. The letter would be polite and say, “Hey, we think this is what’s going on. And if it is, you’re violating our client’s trademark. So, why don’t you just provide some invoices so that we can verify whether you’re sourcing legitimate products for sale on Amazon or not.” Hopefully, we’ll get a positive response and we can point the seller in the right direction without having to file a complaint. But if not, our test buy will likely confirm that the product doesn’t match the listing detail. Then we can use that test buy to make a submission to Amazon, to remove the seller from our client’s listing.
