It is possible the brand registry for this brand will be suspended for abuse at some point, as Amazon does actually take action now against brand owners that file fraudulent counterfeit complaints. (And the complaint filed here was indeed fraudulent and an abuse of the brand registry tools)
You as a seller shouldn’t be impacted that much by it, though it could make the brand’s detail pages more difficult to manage which may negatively impact the sales of that brand.
As far as we can tell, Amazon doesn’t take anyone down for anything anymore actually.
I think it’s time to start putting TONS of fake positive reviews on our listings and TONS of negative reviews on our scum competitors.
If you can’t beat em, join em.
My new motto.
Slipping my black hat on as we speak. You can’t win by doing the right thing on Amazon.
Hello @Dogtamer , that is no longer the case, I think what triggered it was due to the Performance Notification I received due to the IP Complaint, but since it resolved, it started working after 24 hours
My metrics are back to normal, no more violation
I have a good account history though, but I was surprised too that it did not indicate Account suspension on the first email, but only listing deactivation. I am happy I got it all resolved
They are a very big company, a big known brand. The sales department made a mistake, they were vetting sellers, so they mistakenly added me to the black list, and termed a very bad statement to my listing, but when I called, they apologized and got it resolved within 24 hours
I don’t consider that a mistake. I would say that’s abusing the brand registry system by filing baseless claims for the purposes of selective distribution. Not recognizing who a seller is doesn’t mean they’re selling counterfeit products.
This has been a long standing issue, the fact they allow a brand to target a single seller without a test buy is ridiculous. The only time “counterfeit without test buy” should be allowed is against an entire listing if a listing is of a product that brand does not manufacture at all, which they could tell from the listing images alone. If the detail page is legitimate there’s no way to tell if a seller is selling counterfeit products without doing an actual test buy.
In MY case I produce, pack, and, label the products and I do NOT wholesale I have authorized my sales LLC to be the ONLY authorized seller (in writing) for my products.
There is no possible way that anyone has NEW products to sell that are legitimate except my own sales arm.
I have successfully done a number of “counterfeit without a test buy” claims and gotten several other sellers knocked off ASINs.
Brands have every right to control their distribution channels. I was selling a decent amount of products by filling orders on a now defunct site called Shopatron. I got the product from one of the largest authorized distributors in the country. What THEY didn’t tell me was the brand required a B&M location to sell their items and I got shut off from the supplier. Lost several grand a year in sales as a result…
If it’s a DTC only private label brand that’s a little different, since it’s highly likely that someone selling it is selling fakes, but even there it’s possible they bought it at retail and are reselling because they don’t need it (or obtained the products through some fraudulent means, like buying it with stolen credit cards).
In the OP’s case, that brand sounds like they do sell at wholesale and are filing fraudulent claims instead of properly policing their supply chain. And they’re filing those claims without even contacting the sellers first, which is also concerning behavior if you are actually an authorized seller. If they’re doing this now who knows what they’ll do in the future. Let’s say they want to cut off their distributors and handle DTC by themselves. A reasonable company would let everyone know and give everyone a chance to sell through their inventory. This company might just file a bunch of bogus complaints against all their sellers and take over the listing themselves that way. Just something to look out for
Aside from the case here, we all know ‘reasonable company’ and “Amazon” do not belong in the same universe.
Look at all the sellers that had thousands of dollars of brand name items in Amazon warehouses and were told the products were now gated and they were done selling them on Amazon. That was at the behest of the brand that had ‘gone solo’ there as I recall. Same thing for the many book publishers that shut down nearly all other sellers.
It’s getting worse out there/here and ‘fair’ and ‘reasonable’ are getting lost in the process unless you deal with smaller companies with less distribution.
I (happily) have one that is now using those stickers/labels from Amazon and they informed me that they notified Amazon I can sell through UNstickered items that I have in inventory. Of course, since I don’t sell FBA it doesn’t really matter but the thought and consideration was appreciated!
I’m talking about the brand owner being reasonable.
Amazon’s never reasonable.
Those brand owners could’ve given their resellers a heads up, but of course they also acted in their self interest and just wanted to sell as much stuff as possible, if people get stuck with it that’s their problem. Big companies typically act like this, and there’s nothing really wrong with that as their duty is to their shareholders.