Tag: amazon

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Amazon Brand Protection

Amazon is the biggest retailer on the planet and most of their sales are not actually Amazon products but sold on behalf of other businesses using the Amazon platform and Amazon is a huge target for all sorts of scams and other types of fraud.

Amazon Brand Registry Program

This is Amazon’s way to tie brand owners more closely into Amazon and give them extra functions and services to protect and build on their brand. It is particularly useful if a product maker has multiple retailers selling their products online.

Amazon Describes The Benefits As :

  • It helps a brand to have control over their product listings
  • It ensures that the information given about a product is accurate
  • It helps to increase product sales
  • It helps protect the brand
  • It enhances the brand content
  • It helps improve efficiency
  • It helps to list the products without UPCs or EANs
  • It eases the listing of products
  • It helps create different product variations
  • It eliminates bad listings
  • It comes with enhanced customer support
  • It offers enhanced image search to match any fake logo(s) or product(s) through images

Who Qualifies to Use the Brand Register?

  • Sellers who sell their products under their brand name
  • Sellers who are manufacturers
  • Sellers who are actually private label brand owners
  • Sellers who produce white label products
  • Sellers who are actually distributors and who have the authority to own a trademark’s content in Amazon

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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Amazon Listing Hijack

This scam is nasty as it takes business from legitimate sellers and can blacken people’s names who know nothing about the scam being perpetrated using their name.

A scammer picks a high selling product on Amazon and then sets up entries on Amazon selling that same product and using copied photos and descriptions etc.

The scammers may simply duplicate the product entry on Amazon, take orders and then disappear but the most damage is caused where the scammer buys counterfeit products and sells them as if originals. The fakes, by their nature, will be inferior to the originals and complaints will lead back to the original seller whose reputation is then damaged, as well as not having made the sales.

The Amazon Buy Box

Typically, smaller companies may go to great lengths to ensure they have high quality products that no-one else sells and have put a lot of time and money into building a brand, only to see a scammer cashing in on that hard work.

Amazon has something called the Buy Box for certain products and this is where a supplier can be the ‘King’ of selling that item, but unscrupulous sellers can push in and take advantage of that on the same screen.

For some categories of products, Amazon automatically designate one seller as the default seller of a product. If a customer clicks the “Add to Cart” button, the seller that owns the Buy Box will get the sale (unless the customer specifically changes to purchase from a different seller). This is called Buy Box hijacking. Scammers selling counterfeit goods can undercut your pricing and take control of the Buy Box – killing your sales.

Their product quality is not going to be as good and they are likely to use your company details and contact details for complaints, so the result can be unhappy customers who blame you and you lose more sales.

Amazon know all about this scam and if you report an Amazon seller it will be dealt with in time. The process means you have to complain to the seller first and only if they fail to respond then Amazon will take action.

If you face this problem, start the complaint procedure with Amazon straightaway and collect all the evidence you will need.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

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The Amazon Business Account Scam

Amazon provides a business service called the Amazon Business Account and it is increasingly popular for people keen to spend a significant proportion of their business purchases with Amazon.

The real Amazon business account does offer free shipping, cheap prices, pay by invoice etc. and it starts at £80 per year for Amazon Business Prime – which gives the free shipping etc.

However, scammers have realised this is another target market they can go after.

Emails appear to be from Amazon and extol the virtues of opening a free business account with Amazon.

But, they are scammers looking for your login and password and payment details.

The link you click may get you to a website that looks like Amazon, but it’s a fake. Once they have your details, they can set up accounts with Amazon and lots of other retailers in your name and you will get the bills to pay.

If you want to try Amazon Business then go to the Amazon website directly – do not click on links in emails that may be from scammers.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

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