How to stop unauthorized sellers of your equipment on Amazon

What is the first step against unauthorized sellers?

Amazon lists the requirements as a logo that includes your brand name, permanently affixed to your products or packaging, and a pending or registered trademark for the brand name or logo from the designated government office of a country with an Amazon store (Amazon Brand Registry). The mark can be a word mark, or a design mark with words, letters or numbers (Brand Registry requirements).

No trademark yet? Amazon's IP Accelerator connects brands with vetted law firms, and once a trademark application is pending you can enroll in Brand Registry (IP Accelerator). In the US, applications are filed with the USPTO.

What can Report a Violation remove?

Amazon describes the tool as one place to report suspected IP infringement, store policy violations and regulatory compliance concerns, and Brand Registry also runs automated protections that use your brand information to find and remove suspected bad listings (Amazon Brand Registry). You can use Report a Violation from the Brand Registry portal even without a selling account (Brand Registry requirements).

Report accurately. Project Zero, the program that lets a brand remove counterfeit listings itself, requires a history of Report a Violation use within the last six months with at least a 90% acceptance rate (Project Zero). Careless reports cost you that option.

Why make a test buy before you report?

Amazon recommends a test buy to confirm a suspected counterfeit before removing offers or listings through Project Zero (Project Zero). Keep the order number, photos of the unit and packaging, and the serial or lot number. If the unit is genuine, the serial or lot number often tells you which dealer or distributor it came from.

How do dealer terms stop resellers?

The FTC says the law allows a manufacturer to deal only with retailers who agree to its resale price policy, and that a manufacturer may stop dealing with a retailer that does not follow that policy (FTC). The same page notes that some state laws treat minimum price rules differently, so have counsel review the wording. This guide is general information, not legal advice.

• Name the channels each dealer may sell through, including online marketplaces.
• Say whether dealers may sell to other resellers, and what happens if they do.
• Write down how you apply the policy, and apply it to every dealer the same way.

Does Transparency stop unauthorized sellers?

Amazon calls Transparency a product serialization service and anti-counterfeiting program. Enrolling needs a Brand Registry account as the rights owner of an active registered trademark, a GTIN for each product, and the ability to code every unit. Enrollment is free and codes are priced per code: $0.05 each for 1 to 1,000,000 codes, then lower at higher volume (Transparency).

Unauthorized sellers often appear because a brand has no authorized presence of its own. The guide to Amazon routes for equipment brands compares the ways to fill that gap.