How to Successfully Protect Your Brand on The Amazon Marketplace
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The document provides a comprehensive overview of strategies for protecting brands on the Amazon marketplace, focusing on the continuous effort required to monitor and enforce brand protection policies. It highlights the challenges of identifying trademark and IP infringements, the importance of prioritization and measurement in addressing these issues, and key case studies such as TRX's experience with counterfeits. Additionally, it discusses the implications of enforcement actions by major brands and the overall significance of maintaining brand integrity in an increasingly competitive online retail environment.
How to Successfully Protect Your Brand on The Amazon Marketplace
- 1. How to Successfully Protect Your Brand on The Amazon Marketplace Actionable Steps to Policing Your Brand on the Amazon Marketplace
- 2. Event Logistics Join the Conversation: Submit questions and thoughts Session Recording Will Be Sent out 12/7/16 Event Moderator Nick Cotter Marketing Operations Coordinator Today’s Resources
- 3. OVERVIEW • Founded in 2007 • Recognized as an Official Google Shopping Partner • 350+ Active Retail Clients • Top 50 fastest growing company in San Diego 4 years • Recognized as one of the Top 10 best places to work in SD SOLUTIONS • Retail-focused Paid Search (PPC) • Google Shopping Management • Shopping Channel Management • Amazon Sales Acceleration • Facebook Advertising Management About CPC Strategy CLIENTS
- 4. OVERVIEW • 1,700+ retail, manufacturing, brand, and agency clients • Operating for over 30 years Market Track uniquely provides a 360 degree view of what is impacting shopper decision-making—offering full visibility and insight into promotional, advertising and pricing initiatives SOLUTIONS • Brand Protection & MAP Services • Competitive Promotional Intelligence • Advertising Spend & Creative Intelligence • Competitive eCommerce Price Tracking About Market Track
- 5. Today’s Speakers Ryne Misso Director of Marketing Pat Petriello Head of Marketplace Strategy
- 6. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 66 What we’ll cover I. The mechanics that make protecting your brand a continuous effort onAmazon II. What to watch for when diagnosing infringements of your trademark, IP, or other brand regulations III. The importance of infringement validation and prioritization in brand protection IV. How measurement helps frame the extent of your brand protection problems V. How consistency in enforcement strengthens your brand policies
- 7. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 77 The Mechanics That make protecting your brand a continuous effort
- 8. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 88 Selling on Amazon is easy…but why? Fast for the seller Cost- efficient for the seller Differentiate s Amazon Benefits Amazon sales Can begin selling immediately More than 2 million independent sellers on Amazon’s marketplace* Avoid cost of creating and marketing their own eCommerce site, and assistance with distribution Third party sellers help Amazon expand its inventory and assortment quickly and cost effectively About half of the goods purchased on Amazon come from independent merchants** *Bloomberg Technology “Amazon Gets Real About Fakes” **CNBC “Amazon takes counterfeit sellers to court for first time”
- 9. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 99 Enforcing on Amazon is more difficult If a seller has your products but shouldn’t, and their listings are not infringing on your trademarks, IP, or brand, the only way to enforce is to contact the seller Sellers may not respond, or may vanish and resurface under a new name Nuance onAmazon: In a 24 hour period, an enforcer can only send up to 25 infringement notices from one domain name
- 10. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1010 Enforcing on Amazon is more difficult If there is something that is actually harmful or infringing: Portal on Amazon connects you to their copyright/IP team Characterize and submit evidence on the infringement But…there are problems Lack of consistent communication Many of you probably have sent a note to an Amazon vendor manager to address a brand protection issue, yet have never received a reply
- 11. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1111 Ease of selling opens up risk Even if one seller is enforced on, it is easy for them to re-emerge under a new seller name Eg. newseller, new-seller, new_seller, newseller1, etc. Even authorized sellers may have multiple seller names under one parent seller The result can be an endless loop Brands report fraudulent listings Marketplaces suspend accounts Sellers create new accounts, selling the same fraudulent goods Identify Counterfeits Account Suspended New Fraudulent Seller
- 12. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1212 Why no longer selling on Amazon is an unattractive option Amazon is quickly headed towards leading all of retail, making the opportunity cost too high for brands: $107 billion net sales in 2015 304 million worldwide active customer accounts 186 million unique monthly visitors to Amazon sites 20% year over year revenue growth 81% online user reach in the U.S. 61 84 101 107 183 Target Walmart Amazon sites Most Popular Retail Websites in the U.S., by Monthly Visitors (in millions) $4.83 $10.70 $12.00 $13.48 $79.27 Macy's Staples Apple Walmart Amazon Annual eCommerce Sales (in $billions)
- 13. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1313 TRX Case Study TRX had been selling the TRX Training System on Amazon since 2008: First noticed counterfeits on Amazon in 2013 Double-edged sword: • TRX had enjoyed booming sales and reach, in large part thanks to the Amazon Marketplace. But counterfeiters were cutting into their sales. TRX employees searched Amazon daily for fraudulent listings, but new listings would emerge every day • TRX estimates counterfeits cost them $100 million/year—twice their annual sales “We realized this was an epidemic.” – Randy Hetrick, TRX Founder
- 14. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1414 What to Watch For When diagnosing infringements on your trademark, IP or brand
- 15. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1515 Understanding your brand From distribution to brand and pricing policies, understanding your brand helps you know what to watch for when identifying infringements on your trademark and/or IP: Who is authorized to sell our products? How many units have been distributed? Where have they been distributed? At what price should we be listed? What is our MAP schedule? When are promotional periods for our reseller partners? Do we know our current logos/packaging?
- 16. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 16 What to watch for – “risk indicators” Quantities How many units does the seller have in stock? Depth of Discount Has the seller discounted at the wrong depth/time? Price Is the seller listed within our pricing policies? Location Is the seller based in the US or abroad? Subjective Listing Titles Are your brand and product names listed accurately? Inaccurate Branding Does the seller reflect your latest logo, branding, and packaging?
- 17. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1717 Infringement Validation The importance of prioritizing enforcement
- 18. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 1818 Prioritization helps make progress Even with a great understanding of their brand, many companies struggle with trademark and IP infringement on the Amazon Marketplace due to limited process or resources needed to monitor hundreds of listings continuously We are seeking infringement “candidates” based on risk indicators, helping listings most likely to be fraudulent to float to the top, and filtering out listings that do not show signs of infringement
- 19. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 19 Process for identifying candidates 1,000 total listings extracted 430 have over 20 units in stock Of those 430, 200 ship from Asia Of those 200, 90 are selling at a deep discount 90 infringement “candidates” for investigation/enforcement “Candidates” are more qualified with every risk indicator they meet. In other words, the less a listing fits within your understanding of your distribution, brand, and policies, the more likely it is to be counterfeit or unauthorized
- 20. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2020 The ideal “candidate” Subjective Listing Title Low Listing Price Ships from China High Quantity in Stock Unauthorized Image
- 21. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2121 Some infringements require visual validation Listing images provide key evidence of infringement that the text and code on the listing page may not • Eg. Nikon Lithium Ion Battery EN-EL9a • Label seal on the back of counterfeits is dark in color • Dimensions of counterfeit hologram seals differ, do not have four notches
- 22. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2222 Measurement Understanding the extent of the problem
- 23. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2323 Framing the problem with measurement Infringements by Category/Product Infringement Trends Alerts, dashboards, reporting and visualizations help manage violations and infringements, as well as actions against non- compliant resellers: • Are we seeing fewer infringements over time? • Which of our categories/products are infringed on most? • By how much are our pricing policies being violated?
- 24. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2424 Listing image and detail are key data points Archive of listing images provides a library of evidence to support infringement claims Key elements to enforcing on Amazon: • Trademark registration numbers • Proof of IP ownership • Comparison listing images
- 25. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2525 Consistency in enforcement Strengthening brand policies
- 26. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2626 Key enforcement events in 2016 Leading brands have taken action on Amazon’s Marketplace in different ways this year Birkenstock announced it would cease selling products on Amazon due to concerns about counterfeits Apple Inc. sued an Amazon supplier for selling fake Apple products Major League Baseball and the National Football League banned selling merchandise on third party marketplaces. The MLB said: “It is our responsibility to provide our fans with reliable and secure marketplaces to purchase officially licensed merchandise. Given the rampant growth of online-only retailers supplying counterfeit merchandise, our policies must hold every distribution partner to that same level of commitment.” These are all forms of brand protection and listing enforcement—brands are removing listings/taking legal
- 27. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2727 The word is out
- 28. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 28 Thank you! Questions
- 29. © 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 2929 For more on protecting your brands online Compass is a two-day event that brings together industry insiders and leaders to discuss internal and external challenges, solutions, and best practices related to online channel management, brand protection, policy enforcement, and digital marketing. Register for Compass 2017 at markettrack.com/compass