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Amazon Brand Registry: How it works in 2020

Written by Matthew Ferguson | Jan 26, 2020 12:00:00 AM

These days, sellers know how important it is to sign up to Amazon’s Brand Registry scheme, which has been in place since 2017. The scheme was set up to develop a series of programs and tools to protect vendors selling brands on the site, with the Registry team reporting on intellectual property infringement, listings issues and violations. Here’s how to make Amazon’s Brand Registry work for you in 2020.

WHY SIGN UP?

Better accuracy

With Amazon’s Brand Registry giving vendors more control over product pages using their brand name, the correct information is more likely to be associated with the brand.

Better searches

Global searches help sellers look across all the Amazon stores from one screen, while image searches track down listings that match branded products. Meanwhile, bulk ASIN searches expediate explorations into dubious content fast. Simple workflows complete the search process and allow vendors to enter reports of potential infringements.

Better protection

On top of Amazon’s standard protection measures, the Registry takes the information a seller provides and adds predictive protections to identify bad listings. When enrolling in the Registry be sure to provide as much detail as possible in order to help Amazon protect your brand, such as items that are incorrectly using your trademarked terms in their titles, and images that are incorrectly using your logo.

Access to additional seller tools

Registered Brands also get access to features like improved listings (A+) and Branded Storefronts, helping your products stand out from the crowd.

HOW TO APPLY

Eligibility

Sellers must first check whether they are eligible to apply. Brands must have an active registered trademark in every country where a seller is enrolling, or a pending trademark application filed through Amazon IP Accelerator. Furthermore, that trademark must be a text- or image-based mark including words, letters or numbers. You can find your trademark registration number here (UK) or here (US)

If you’ve got the green light, sign up using your Seller or Vendor Central credentials. Now enrol your brand, wait for Amazon verification, then get on with accessing all of the essential Brand Registry features. Find out more here.

Brand representation and protection

Now you are an active Registry member you can have more control over pages that use your brand, ensuring the right information is more likely to appear. When you enrol, supply as many details as possible to the Registry in order to apply additional protective measures that might help weed out potential dangers.

Search and report tools

Brands now signing up to the Registry will have access to a customised search tool that enables sellers to scour all of Amazon’s stores. This includes image searches, sort views of customer ratings of ASINs that help gauge popularity, and bulk ASIN searches to help expediate the identification of potentially damaging content.

NEW TOOLS

Transparency Program

Amazon’s new program gives brands a bespoke alphanumeric code attached to all product units, then uses the information to authenticate the items. Fulfilment centres look for and scan the codes, ensuring genuine items are shipped. To access this program, vendors must be able to verify themselves as the brand owner; provide a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), such as a UPC or EAN barcode for each product; and display an ability to apply Transparency codes on every unit.

Project Zero

Amazon’s aptly named scheme combines three pillars to take the number of inauthentic items found down to zero.

  1. Automated protections look for counterfeits, scanning the many Amazon stores to identify any suspicious items. When sellers sign up to the Brand Registry Scheme the information they provide is used in these searches: the better informed Amazon is, the more it can help.
  2. Self-service counterfeit removal is now in place so that sellers can do the housekeeping themselves, saving themselves valuable time.
  3. Product serialisation applies bespoke codes to all items so that Amazon can detect fraudulent stock before a customer has a chance to click and purchase.

Enrolled in the scheme before April 2017? You will need to make sure you re-enrol to benefit from Amazon’s new tools, and word has it that doing this will be highly beneficial to brand businesses.

 

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