Amazon To Expand Counterfeit Removal Program in Overture To Sellers (reuters.com)

Amazon.com is expanding a program to remove counterfeit goods from its website this spring as part of a broader push to assure brand owners that the online retailer is an ally rather than a threat. From a report: As early as next month, any brand can register its logo and intellectual property with Amazon so the e-commerce company can take down listings and potentially seller accounts when counterfeits are flagged, Peter Faricy, vice president of Amazon Marketplace, said in an interview on Monday. The so-called brand registry, which had been in a test phase, will be widely available for free in North America, Faricy said ahead of his presentation at the Shoptalk commerce conference in Las Vegas.

Comments

It is just a decent thing to do

[mi]

to assure brand owners that the online retailer is an ally rather than a threat

Yeah... How about "because it is the right thing to do"?

The fakes do not benefit the buyer, who is being lied to. They don't benefit the designer, who spends effort and money to create the designs, which are then copied (stolen) by the fake-makers.

If a marketplace is not fighting fakes, it gets flooded with them to the exclusion of the real brands...

Re: It is just a decent thing to do

[bad-badtz-maru]

In the majority of the cases, the counterfeit product is a poor quality visually-similar item. It's very rare these days that a counterfeit item comes from the same factory as the legit item.

This will work like youtube content flagging

[wbr1]

I sell on AZ oas a 3rd party seller. I engage in something known as retail arbitrage. I find deals in stores that are better than the current price on amazon and exploit the difference for a profit. I frequent discount stores and clearances at major stores. Often I find clearance items, or at stores like Big Lots, items that are discontinued but still good, and often have an increasing profit margin online as the supply is dwindling.

I work hard to ensure that my sources are not counterfeit, but since I primarily purchase retail, I have no wholesale distributor invoice to prove authenticity. While not abused yet, there are situations where a manufacturer or other seller will claim a seller has counterfeit items to remove that competition. With the brand registry, I see this as happening more, and small sellers will get hammered by what are essentialy NOT good faith take down notices. This can result in complete removal of a seller account, shutting down small and legitimate businesses. There are many sellers that DO abuse the system and sell counterfeit goods, but this system will not discriminate, and many of those will find other ways to skirt the rules.

Too little too late

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

These days I treat Amazon like I treat Expedia: I use the site to find a couple of reputable-looking, US-based vendors (on Expedia, it would be hotels/airlines) who appear to be selling something at a good price, and then I go to those vendor's sites directly and order off the vendor's eComm store directly. (And if there's a price difference, I contact support before-hand and get my item priced-matched with the Amazon deal.)

It's just not worth it to get any more Amazon "suh-plizes" since crap suppliers somehow keep getting injected in the chain. (I stopped using Expedia early on when they comingled "cannot cancel" flights/hotels with "cancellable" ones; I often want the flexibility that booking direct provides.)

Amazon needs to curate their site more diligently

[AntronArgaiv]

There's a whole swarm of "sketchy" vendors on Amazon.com...I avoid them in the most part by only ordering "Prime" merchandise. But Amazon needs to take more responsibility for the quality of vendors on their site. Requiring physical address, phone number and email for all vendors and displaying it on the site would be a good start.

Reactive PR: Amazon caught selling counterfeits

[lindner]

Looks like they're trying to head off a negative news cycle from this tweet from the owner of No Starch Press

https://twitter.com/billpolloc...

"Images of counterfeit copies of Python for Kids being sold on Amazon. Legit copies are thicker, color, layflat binding, nicer paper. @amazon"

Also see discussion on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/i...

Re:Scan your receipts

[wbr1]

With Amazon they prefer actual invoices over retail reciepts. I do keep and scan reciepts and when cases arise for this or other reasons, the receipt is often enough, but not always. It really depends on which outsourced and undertrained worker andsweres the case.

How about counterfit sellers?

[Lumpy]

So many sellers that use the name of the company of the product they are selling that are NOT actually that company. Sorry, but SONOS is not selling Sonos speakers under the name "Sonos Speaker Depot" and they need to insta ban those users doing that crap.