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Fast & Easy Route to Amazon Transparency Program

Posted on by trademarkangel

We all watched it, but if you haven’t – we are talking about that video of a penguin stealing stones from another penguins’ nest. It’s a mix of both bad and good emotion. For some reason, most of us find the penguin-stealer funny or cute, but feel bad with the other who was honestly working on her nest.

Amazon is a place not different from Antarctica where theft is a constant. The truth is: we cannot completely free the world of theft, whoever or whatever the actor is. Amazon is no exception.

Theft is committed on Amazon in the form of counterfeiting, without the element of cuteness.  Counterfeiting is one of the evils facing both the e-commerce giant and its sellers.

What is counterfeiting? It is an act of selling products which includes “bootlegs, fakes, or pirated copies of products or content; products that have been illegally replicated, reproduced, or manufactured; and products that infringe another party’s intellectual property rights.”

Like the victim penguin, legitimate Amazon sellers have spent considerable resources in building up their brands. But counterfeiters in the e-commerce platform work incredibly hard and smart to negatively impact brands’ growth as counterfeit products destroy brands’ reputation and ability to make profits.

A case study suggests that 3 out of 4 buyers would stop buying from a brand if they discover that there were counterfeits on the market that could be potentially harmful.

Indeed, the implications of counterfeiting reach beyond the buyers and the sellers. Counterfeiting on a large scale disrupts the economy; hence affecting everyone’s lives, one way or another.

Fortunately, Amazon is attributable to customers’ confidence in the authenticity of goods sold on the platform.

Apart from the other programs such as Brand Registry, IP Accelerator, etc, Amazon has another one called Amazon Transparency Program.

The Amazon Transparency program is designed to help brands improve product safety, reduce counterfeits, and provide consumers with greater visibility into their purchases. It places rigorous anti-counterfeiting systems designed to protect customers and honest sellers.

How does it help Amazon sellers?

Two-folds: (1) it has helped increase revenue by 30% which is a significant amount; and (2) it assures no infringement: it has been operational since 2017, and Amazon is claiming that there have been no infringement attempts on any of the enrolled products

How does it actually work?

The program uses a sophisticated product labeling system. It uses secure, unique codes that identify individual units; thus, making product verification readily available to buyers.

Here are easy steps to get started:

Step 1: Amazon sellers have the option to enroll all its products or only some of them to the program.

Step 2: Amazon sellers attach the transparency codes to the enrolled products, like so:

Step 3: Amazon will only ship products with valid transparency codes

Step 4: Buyers can scan the transparency code to determine if they received authentic products, like so.

Step 5: Amazon sellers can interact with their buyers via the Amazon Shopping app and the Transparency app to ensure satisfaction.

Amazon has a cool video about this program. Check it out, it is less than 2 minutes: Transparency by Amazon.

Who are eligible to program?

To be eligible, you must be Amazon sellers must be (1) brand registered, (2) have a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) for your product, such as a UPC, ISBN, or EAN, (3) have the ability to apply unique Transparency codes to every unit you manufacture, regardless of where the units are sold, then you are eligible.

How does Trademark Angel help Amazon sellers expedite Transparency enrollment?

First, we’ll work on getting you brand registered on Amazon. To do so, you’ll need a trademark registration which can take too long for many countries. Good thing is Trademark Angel offers trademark registration in Germany.

Germany? Why?

In Germany, a trademark application matures to registration in 2 weeks to 2 months – the quickest route registration and indeed to Brand Registry enrollment.

Once brand registered, you can now easily apply for the Transparency program. To be sure, the program is available to select countries, including Germany.

If you are an Amazon seller, the only thing that may lengthen the process is the time between now and when you contact Trademark Angel.

Make the call now and join our clients who are now making the most of the Amazon Transparency Program. Don’t get left behind.

TIPS To Remove Hijackers On Your Amazon Listing

Posted on by trademarkangel

After you have spent considerable time and effort to launch a product on Amazon, the last thing you need is for someone to come along and sell a cheap knockoff of your product and hijack your listing. There are ways how you can prevent others from hijacking your Amazon listing and what you can do to remove hijackers from your listings.

What Is A Hijacker (Piggybacker)?

A hijacker or a piggybacker is another Amazon seller who has listed their product under your listing. You can find hijackers by visiting your listing and finding the area where it displays other buying options.

A hijacker will usually attempt to sell a fake version of your product by replicating the packaging to make an exact copy. Other times, the product will be totally different from yours.

The problem with hijackers is that they typically list their products at a cheaper price, which effectively steals the buy box from you. This means that you no longer get any sales from your listing.

The situation is made even worse by the fact that not only are you losing sales to the hijacker’s product, their product is also usually of inferior quality, prompting dissatisfied customers to leave bad reviews under your listing.

This why it is extremely important for you to take steps to remove hijackers on your Amazon listing and to remove them as quickly as possible when they appear.

Note: There is a difference between a reseller and a hijacker. A reseller is someone who has purchased a product from you at some point and has decided to resell it on Amazon. While this can be annoying, they are actually selling your real product and are technically allowed to this. Unless you are brand registered, there is little you can do to have a reseller removed from your listing.

Preventing Amazon Hijackers

Most hijackers are lazy and will only hijack a listing when it’s easy to do so. Therefore, the best way to prevent others from hacking your Amazon listing is to make it as difficult as possible to copy your product. To this end, here is what you can do to prevent having your Amazon listing hijacked:

Brand Your Amazon Product

Your first line of defense against hijacking is to put your brand and/or logo on your product and its packaging. You should also have your brand and/or logo clearly evident on your listing, along with photographs showing the products being sold.

By branding your products with unique designs and unique packaging, you make them distinguishable from other seller’s products and harder to be copied. Many Amazon sellers attempt to save money by not branding their products. But when they do so, they eventually have issues with hijackers and have very little recourse against them.

Bundle Your Amazon Products

Again, you can prevent hijacking by making it as difficult as possible to copy your product. Another way to do this is by bundling. Bundling essentially requires you to package and sell different complementary products together to create one unique product.

Differentiating your products with unique bundles makes it more difficult for hijackers to copy them since they would have to go through the trouble of sourcing all of your bundled items. What’s more, if someone lists a product under your listing that does not match your bundle exactly, Amazon will remove it immediately.

Trademark Your Amazon Products

Another way to prevent others from hijacking your Amazon listing is to trademark your brand. This gives you actual legal protection against the unauthorized use of your trademark, as well as, added protection against hijackers through the Amazon Brand Registry.

When you register a trademark for your brand name in the country or jurisdiction where you are doing business, you can prevent others from copying or using your brand name with their own products. You can get a trademark and be brand registered in the US in 9-18 months, or the UK in 3.5-4 months.

Note: A UK or German registered trademark WILL remove a hijacker on amazon.com with our help. However, if you simply ask Amazon for help with a UK or German trademark, they will not help you unless you have a registered US trademark. The ability to report violation on Amazon’s platform is only available for US registered trademarks.

Create A Website For Your Amazon Products

You can also protect your listing from hijackers by creating a website with your brand name in the URL and then listing your products along with their UPC, EAN, and/or FNSKU barcodes. This doesn’t need to be a very elaborate website. Just a web page where your brand and products can be published. This web page can then be used to verify that you are the owner of the brand or product and/or prove that the hijacker’s products are counterfeit.

Offer A Money Back Guarantee

Finally, you can offer your customers a Money Back Guarantee to entice them to only purchase products where your brand name or trademark is visible.

How To Remove Hijackers From Your Amazon Listing

When you discover hijackers on your Amazon listing, it is important to have them removed as soon as possible. This way, you can avoid 1) having money literally stolen from you and 2) being punished with one-star reviews from customers who unknowingly purchased an inferior product and are disappointed with what they think was purchased from you.

Here are a few ways to remove hijackers from your Amazon listings:

1. Rely on your registered trademark

The easiest way to remove a hijacker is to report a violation by relying on your registered trademark in a country where you report violation. So if you want to remove a hijacker on amazon.com, you will need to have a US registered trademark. And similarly, if you want to remove a hijacker on amazon.co.uk, you will need to have a UK registered trademark.

2. Send a Cease and Desist Letter

The very first thing you should do when someone attempts to hijack your Amazon listing is to send them a cease and desist letter. You can use an attorney if it gets complicated. Otherwise, you can write a strong cease and desist letter on your own, or download one here. Many times, this will be enough the scare the hijacker off.

The hijacker’s contact details can be found on their Amazon store page and can be used to contact them through the Amazon system. In fact, you should only contact a hijacker through Amazon in order to ensure that Amazon has a record of the correspondence.

3. Perform A Test Buy

If the hijacker persists and your brand is not registered, you can perform a test buy and report it to Amazon. To do this, purchase one of the hijacker’s products and take pictures of it alongside yours. Note all of the differences between the two and report the hijacker to Amazon using the Report Infringement form. You can also use the report infringement form to report IP infringement when, for example, you find someone using your photos or copying your listing.

4. Apply For The Amazon Transparency Program To Prevent Counterfeits

The Amazon Transparency Program was established to fight counterfeiters, issue unique UPC codes, and protect brands. The transparency program does this by allowing you to buy 2D UPC codes from Amazon that you can attach to your products.

Each code is a unique, individual code assigned to a particular item. So, for example, if you have 100 watches, each watch will have its own 2D UPC code. This means 100 unique UPC codes.

Each product is also linked to Amazon’s Brand Registry, which means that in order to take advantage of the Transparency Program you have to be enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry which, in turn, means that you must have a trademark.

5. Apply For The Amazon Brand Incubator Program

Once you have joined the Amazon Brand Incubator Program, they will remove hijackers all from your listings within 60 days. Again, to join the Amazon Brand Incubator Program you will need to be registered with Brand Registry and have a trademark.

6. Apply For The Amazon Project Zero Program

Amazon wants to cut down on fake listings. Previously companies had to submit a request to Amazon to have a fake version of the product removed. Now and going forward, companies that are part of the Amazon Project Zero Program will have the ability to remove counterfeit products themselves without waiting for Amazon to take it down.

Currently, this program is only available by invitation but you can get on a wait-list https://brandservices.amazon.com/projectzero/waitlist

7. Contact Trademark Angel For Assistance With Hijacker Removal On Amazon

There are many advantages to obtaining a trademark for your Amazon brand. However, mistakes made in the trademark process can cost you thousands of dollars.

Because of this, you need an experienced trademark expert to shepherd you through the process from the start to finish. Trademark Angel provides assistance with trademark registration in Canada, US, UK, EU, Australia, China, and other jurisdictions.

What’s more, Trademark Angel now offers Amazon hijacker removal services as well. Call Trademark Angel in Canada at 226.246.2979, or visit our contact page to book an initial consultation.