{"id":2826,"date":"2020-06-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/advantage-360\/consumer-goods-companies-challenged-to-protect-brands-online\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T18:24:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T18:24:39","slug":"consumer-goods-companies-challenged-to-protect-brands-online","status":"publish","type":"mrktblog-posts","link":"https:\/\/youradv.com\/mrktblog\/consumer-goods-companies-challenged-to-protect-brands-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Brands Challenged by Unauthorized Online Sellers"},"content":{"rendered":"

IRVINE, California \u2014 Amazon shoppers are often unaware their purchases are sold by unauthorized third-party vendors, rather than by Amazon, authorized sellers or the brand itself, leading to an array of problems and pain points for brands, according to two industry experts participating in \u201cProtecting Your Brand Online,\u201d a webinar hosted by Advantage Digital Commerce, a division of Advantage Solutions.<\/p>\n

As long as a brand\u2019s products are available to be sold, sales through unauthorized third parties will exist, according to panelists Michelle Dailing, director of brand protection for Sage Tree LLC, an Advantage Digital Commerce agency, and Denise Mosteller, director of brand protection for TrackStreet.<\/p>\n

Amazon\u2019s Marketplace, the online retailer\u2019s platform for third-party sellers, has long been plagued by counterfeits, price degradation and bad digital content, Dailing said. \u201cUp to 4,000 new sellers enroll in Amazon Marketplace each month in the U.S. alone,\u201d Dailing noted, \u201cand sales by third parties \u2014 which include authorized sellers and unauthorized sellers that are unidentified rogue sellers \u2014 now account for 54% of Amazon\u2019s online sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pricing Disruption, Counterfeits, and Brand Risk<\/h2>\n

Third-party sellers may sell anything they want at any price they want to, Dailing noted. \u201cAmazon does not dictate [third-party] prices. Quite often you see very high price points and very low price points, mainly due to how products are acquired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Products sold by unauthorized third-party sellers are subject to quality control issues, such as expired products, and bad content, including erroneous or misleading product descriptions \u2014 all of which can affect brand perception. \u201cWe also see counterfeit products and missing or incorrect Q&As. If someone is shipping your product and has no vested interest in your brand, they will ship damaged goods, goods past expiration or broken, leaking packaging. These are things that prompt consumers to leave poor product reviews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loss of control online negatively impacts in-store performance, as roughly 80% of shoppers start their research online and many research products on Amazon before they walk into a store to make their planned purchase, Dailing said. These behaviors illustrate ongoing shifts in consumer and retail industry trends, particularly in how product discovery and purchase decisions unfold.<\/p>\n

Relationships with retailers may also be strained by third-party vendors who are disrupting pricing. \u201cIf you have third parties upsetting your pricing, you could have retailers come back to you asking, \u2018How are they selling it for this price?\u2019 and wanting to discuss margin to reduce the price to stay competitive with online prices,\u201d Dailing said.<\/p>\n

Tools and Policies That Help Brands Regain Control<\/h2>\n

To avoid third-party pain points, brands must have a clear distribution and channel strategy. \u201cYou may be selling to authorized distributors that sell to dealers, who are then selling to retailers and\/or third-party Amazon sellers,\u201d Mosteller said. \u201cAnd you have shoppers who are going into retail stores and buying bulk discount items to sell on their own third-party Amazon store, leading to muddy waters very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protection Tools<\/h3>\n

To help protect a brand\u2019s integrity and intellectual property, Amazon offers several tools. Amazon\u2019s Brand Registry<\/a><\/u>, for example, enrolls brands with a federally registered trademark and helps them combat the sale of counterfeit goods, trademark infringement, and copyright and patent infringement, and allows brands to have more control over product pages and how listings appear to shoppers. Registering products through Amazon\u2019s Brand Registry provides Amazon with richer data, enabling the platform to proactively take down counterfeit listings, Mosteller said.<\/p>\n

Another tool that helps brands protect themselves is Project Zero<\/a><\/u>, an initiative to give trademark owners more power to auto-remove counterfeit products. To be eligible for the program, a brand must be enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry and have submitted trademark violation reports with a 90% acceptance rate.<\/p>\n

Finally, Transparency<\/a><\/u> is an Amazon product serialization service that identifies authentic goods by tagging every product with a transparency code. No code, no place in the Amazon Marketplace.<\/p>\n

Outside of using Amazon tools, many brands are partnering with legal firms and service providers to help determine the right distribution policies and marketplace monitoring tools to ensure their products are going to the right places and are sold by the right people, Dailing said. \u201cThe first step to brand control is to build or update your agreements, first-party sales doctrine and distribution policies to include the right language protecting products from being sold online in any unauthorized capacity. Anyone who is selling online would apply for authorization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next step is to monitor marketplaces and enforce against unauthorized sellers. If there is still no resolution, legal action may be necessary. We see 100% compliance once attorneys get involved, leading to total e-commerce channel control.”<\/p>\n

To consider taking legal action, brands must have a strong foundation with the necessary language in agreements and policies. “Brands should be proactive and think about who they want to sell their products,” Dailing said. “Determine what qualifications need to be met and what makes a dealer a good partner. It’s also important to educate the company, especially the sales team, on what makes a good customer. No reason to work so hard to clean up a system just to continue filling it with problems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IRVINE, California \u2014 Amazon shoppers are often unaware their purchases are sold by unauthorized third-party vendors, rather than by Amazon, authorized sellers or the brand itself, leading to an array of problems and pain points for brands, according to two industry experts participating in \u201cProtecting Your Brand Online,\u201d a webinar hosted by Advantage Digital Commerce, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2827,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"mrktblog-category":[41],"class_list":["post-2826","mrktblog-posts","type-mrktblog-posts","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","mrktblog-category-advantage-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnauthorized Sellers Threaten Brand Control<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Advantage experts explore how unauthorized sellers affect online brand control and reveal key shifts in consumer and retail industry trends.\" \/>\n<meta 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