Counterfeit products and dishonest sellers will unfortunately always be prevalent across ecommerce marketplaces, even on big players like Amazon. There will always be people trying to rip off other brands products to make a profit, but luckily, Amazon is dedicated to putting necessary and proactive measures in place to combat this.
Amazon stepped up their game when it comes to protecting brands and genuine sellers on the platform with the release of Amazon Brand Registry 2.0 in 2017. The Brand Registry program is in place to protect brands from having their products tampered with, copied, or re-branded by untrustworthy sellers to profit from as their own.
What is the Amazon Brand Registry?
Amazon Brand Registry is a scheme whereby manufacturers or brands can register and gain complete control over all representations of their brand across the platform. The improved program in 2017 allows brands to protect their products with officially registered trademarks, customise their entire customer experience to increase trust and gain access to a range of exclusive features to grow their brand’s presence on Amazon.
Amazon uses complex algorithms to determine and locate product information across all sellers and retailers offering the same product, allowing manufacturers and brands to take control.
Brands can monitor all item listings and ensure the product information is consistent, accurate, and up-to-date to avoid their brand reputation being affected by spammy or inaccurate listings.
Not only does Amazon Brand Registry help to pinpoint and eliminate counterfeit products, but it also means that brands can help out other sellers who offer their branded products. If all product listings for a brand are consistent and optimised for visibility, it will instil trust in your target consumers and indirectly benefit sales and revenue across the board.
Since Amazon Brand Registry 2.0 was released in 2017, Amazon has further evolved the amount of protection and the range of features available to brands selling on the platform. The new and improved features available to registered brands go a lot further than simply helping to eliminate counterfeits but also allow brands to grow their presence and analyse their success.
What does Amazon Brand Registry 2.0 offer?
- Increased access to a unique range of brand enhancement tools
- Bulk product image and text search
- Predictive automation for identifying potential infringement
- Control over all product listings that mention your brand
- Enhanced Amazon support
- Increased brand protection measures
- Easier detection of brand violations
Why do you need Amazon Brand Registry?
Amazon Brand Registry not only provides benefits for your reputation on Amazon but across the entire web.
1. Brand representation
Having complete control over product listings where your brand is mentioned allows you to monitor how your brand is represented across the entire Amazon marketplace.
Depending on which or how many Amazon platforms you register your brand on, having a trademark in place and tools at your disposal to track down any listings that infringe on this ensures product accuracy and consistent branding across all the content and imagery used in product listings.
It helps to protect your brand’s reputation from being affected by any negative representation or inaccuracies, which in turn will benefit your sales and revenue. If customers come across a listing that uses inconsistent branding or offers a poor-quality product with your brand name, this can impede your sales and impact the level of trust between your brand and your target market over time.
2. Brand reputation
On top of being able to manage the representation of your brand on Amazon, Brand Registry goes further by offering exclusive features to enhance and grow your brand’s reputation.
3. Amazon A+ Content
Amazon’s A+ Content features mean brands get access to a wider range of options for customising their product listings and creating a branded customer experience. Registered brand owners can change the product descriptions of all their branded ASINs by including a brand story, more images and varying text placements for more professional and converting listings.
4. Amazon Stores
All brands that have been accepted for Amazon Brand Registry automatically get access to the hugely valuable Amazon Stores feature. You can essentially create your very own mini ecommerce store on the Amazon platform to represent your brand and show your full product catalogue, completely free.
You can use simple drag-and-drop editors to create a unique storefront and branded customer experience with a dedicated Amazon URL and multiple pages to showcase various product categories.
On top of the clear benefits that Amazon Brand Registry can have for elevating your brand on Amazon, registered brands also get sole ownership of the Amazon Buy Box for their products. If anyone tries to hijack your product listings or take over the Buy Box, brands have the right to report this to Amazon and have the listings removed.
5. Reporting tools
Amazon Brand Registry also comes with increased search capabilities to find any potential infringement on your brand and take the necessary action efficiently.
- Image Search
You can use ‘Image Search’ to carry out bulk searches of product listings and easily identify any listings that use your brand’s logo or product imagery inaccurately. Image search is designed to help brands easily pinpoint any sellers that are using fake versions of your brand logo, using your logo on counterfeit products, or using poor quality images to promote your brand. - Global Search
Global Search is another key tool where registered brands can search across all Amazon marketplaces for counterfeit products or infringements without having to navigate between the platforms. You can use ASIN’s or product URLs to search through bulks of products and sort your products by popularity to find and tackle infringements in order of product popularity to mitigate the effect on your brand reputation.
6. Brand protection
While Brand Registry is highly valuable for brands to monitor and tackle any potential issues themselves and ensure brand consistency, there are also further protection measures in place carried out by Amazon themselves.
Brand Registry uses your brand’s information to proactively seek out and resolve any infringement across the Amazon marketplace themselves. Their algorithms can seek out any inaccurate or untrustworthy product listings and remove or suspend these before they have a chance to make any sales.
There are several things that the Amazon Brand Registry team look out for:
- Listings using your trademarked branding incorrectly.
- Product images using your logo incorrectly.
- Listings shipping your products from countries your brand doesn’t manufacture or distribute from.
- Listings being created once a brand has already listed a full catalogue.
While it’s important to do your own digging and monitor your brand reports too, Amazon is able to act on 95% of infringement notices within eight hours, making Brand Registry a valuable scheme to be part of.
Transparency by Amazon
In 2019, Amazon launched a further level of support available to sellers known as Transparency by Amazon. This service authenticates each and every product unit sold by a brand before they are sent to the consumer to further clamp down and prevent customers from receiving counterfeit products. The service works by identifying product codes, where all products with the same code go through an authentication stage prior to shipping.
How can you apply for Amazon Brand Registry?
It’s relatively simple to apply for Brand Registry: simply head to your Amazon Seller Central account and enrol. You will need some key information to hand when doing so:
- Brand name with registered trademark and brand logo.
- Government-registered trademark number, name, type, and registering office.
- List of product categories your brand’s products will fit into, product images, logos, packaging images, website URL and social media handle(s).
- List of countries where your products are manufactured and distributed, seller account info, vendor account details, manufacturing details, and license details.
Who is eligible?
Any brand selling their own products on Amazon is eligible to apply. You have to have your own brand and can’t register if you’re a third-party seller retailing another brand’s products unless you have been given authority to own a brand’s trademarked content.
Something else to consider is your trademark has to be registered in the country where you are enrolling, so if you plan to enrol for Brand Registry on multiple international Amazon platforms, you will need to register a trademark in each country. Once trademarks are registered, they must appear clearly on your product packaging, either in text or an image.
How to activate Amazon Brand Registry
It can take up to ten days for your brand to be approved for the scheme. A code is sent to your licensed business address which will need entering into your Seller Account for activation. You will know when your brand is officially registered when you see unique identifiers on your product listings, or you are able to access the enhanced brand content.