How to Successfully Protect Your Brand on The Amazon Marketplace

How to Successfully Protect Your Brand on The Amazon

Marketplace

Actionable Steps to Policing Your Brand on the Amazon Marketplace

Event Logistics

Join the Conversation: Submit questions and

thoughts

Session Recording Will Be Sent out 12/7/16Event ModeratorNick CotterMarketing Operations Coordinator

Today’s Resources

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

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

Today’s Speakers

Ryne MissoDirector of Marketing

Pat PetrielloHead of Marketplace Strategy

© 2016 Market Track. Private and Confidential 66

What we’ll cover

I. The mechanics that make protecting your brand a continuous effort on Amazon

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


The MechanicsThat make protecting your brand a continuous effort


Selling on Amazon is easy…but why?

Fast for the seller

Cost-efficient for the seller

Differentiates

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”


Enforcing on Amazon is more difficultIf 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 nameNuance on Amazon:

In a 24 hour period, an enforcer can only send up to 25 infringement notices from one domain name


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


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 sellerThe result can be an endless loop

Brands report fraudulent listings Marketplaces suspend accounts Sellers create new accounts, selling

the same fraudulent goods

Identify Counterfe

its

Account Suspende

d

New Fraudulen

t Seller


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.

Target

Walmart

Amazon sites

6184

101107

183

Most Popular Retail Websites in the U.S., by Monthly Visi-

tors (in millions)

Macy'sStaples

AppleWalmartAmazon

$4.83 $10.70 $12.00 $13.48

$79.27

Annual eCommerce Sales (in $billions)


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


What to Watch ForWhen diagnosing infringements on your trademark, IP or brand


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?


What to watch for – “risk indicators”

QuantitiesHow many units does the seller have in stock?

Depth of DiscountHas the seller discounted at the wrong depth/time?

PriceIs the seller listed within our pricing policies?

LocationIs the seller based in the US or abroad?

Subjective Listing TitlesAre your brand and product names listed accurately?

Inaccurate BrandingDoes the seller reflect your latest logo, branding, and packaging?


Infringement ValidationThe importance of prioritizing enforcement


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 continuouslyWe 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


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


The ideal “candidate”Subjective Listing Title

Low Listing Price Ships from China

High Quantity in

Stock

Unauthorized Image


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


MeasurementUnderstanding the extent of the problem


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?


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


Consistency in enforcementStrengthening brand policies


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 action against infringement


The word is out


Thank you!

Questions


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