Hello everyone. I sold my business earlier this year and I haven’t been able to find information on how/what/when to do with my Amazon account.
I have a brand in brand registry. I put the account in vacation mode when I sold it while the new owners learn the biz. However, the new owners do want to sell on Amazon eventually but I’m thoroughly confused about how that can happen.
Do we change ownership of the existing account and the new owners re-verify?
Do they have to start from scratch and claim the brand, somehow?
Is there a double-secret unpublished process for this?
I am reluctant to ask Seller Support for obvious reasons. Thanks in advance for any help!
Is your account owned by the business or by you personally?
If the account is owned by the business, that can/should be part of the sale of the business, as they are also purchasing the Amazon account as a business asset. The account would maintain the catalog, permissions, program enrollments, etc. One could argue that you already sold the account to them as part of the business, and just never gave them the login credentials…
You say you have a brand in Brand Registry. If this brand was part of the sale of your business, there would be no problem with the account maintaining this enrollment. If the new owners of the Amazon account do not own the brand, this could cause them a headache down the road.
If the account is under your personal ownership, transferring ownership is more complicated. Basically, you need to create a business to transfer ownership of the Amazon account, then give that business to the person you want to give the account to.
Note: I have never bought or sold an Amazon account, so I can’t be too specific about the details of this process.
Amazon usually wants the new business to have a new account.
Do you have any inventory in FBA?
Did the new owner buy that inventory?
Does the new owner have ownership of the brand in USPTO? … Do they show as the registered owner in USPTO?
Was your business on Amazon under your SS# or TIN# or EIN#?
We would think that you would want a clean break so that anything that they do does not come back to you. You would close your account in good standing and they would open a new account. The existing ASINs would stay on Amazon with the current review ratings. They would set up new offers on those items under their account with their own SKUs. If you give them access to brand registry to work the brand before closing your account, we are not sure if they will have access once your account is closed. They need to have all of their documentation, tax stuff and USPTO ready for verification prior to jumping into Amazon.
There are those that say it can be done but, if it can, it will be a process.
Let’s tag @oneida_books and see if he has some advise on this.
The account is registered to my LLC with me as the primary contact. The tax ID is an EIN.
The new owners have an LLC with a different name and a dba for the brand name, which is the same as my LLC name and the brand name registered with Amazon.
I hadn’t even thought about the trademark ownership – doh! – but I’ll get that transfer started. The rest of their paperwork is in order. There is no inventory at Amazon, I essentially shut it all down prior to the sale then downgraded the store and put it on vacation.
The new owners are people I know so this deal doesn’t have the bad vibes and suspicion typical of a business sale. So they’ll work with me while we sort this out and I’ll be coaching them on navigating Amazon while they dip a toe in the water.
It sounds to me like the course of action here is something like this:
Get USPTO ownership transferred to the new company.
Close my account (it’s in good standing)
Have the new owners open their own account
New owners attempt to register/transfer the brand in Registry
Using the UPC or ASIN, the new owners reactivate my old listings with their own skus
Really great advice here… as I knew there would be. I’ll keep an eye on the thread for another day or two before doing anything. Thank you so much!
Obviously, if the BR is irretrievably tied to you personally, this might be the best course of action, but once the trademark is transferred, it might make more sense to simply ease your credentials out of BR and ease their credentials in (“ease” here meaning one baby step at a time, wait 72 hours, next baby step–in corresponding stages of transfer).
