There’s news leaked out via Bloomberg that Nike have already signed a deal to sell direct on Amazon.com via the marketplace’s Brand Registry which would allow them to control third party sellers on the site. If you sell the Nike brand on Amazon you could wake up one day to find that you’re banned from selling.
Nike also own the Converse and Hurley brands so sellers of these products could also be impacted.
The aim of Amazon Brand Registry is to attract brand owners to the site under the premise of giving them control of their products on Amazon. Brand Registry encourages a brand to create enhanced product detail pages (See A+ video below for more details) and then to control which sellers are allowed to list against these ASINs.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=c2IOTNIenjA
The rational behind the Brand Registry program is that allows brands to police sellers and wipe out those who supply counterfeit or grey market products. The downside for genuine sellers is that at worst you could be banned outright from selling certain brands on Amazon and at best you could face demands from Amazon wanting to see your supplier invoices to demonstrate that you are selling genuine products.
With Amazon Brand Registry there are very few ways to appeal a selling ban. If a brand really wants to control the market and only sell on Amazon themselves then they can. If they decide that only authorised retailers of their brand are allowed to sell then they can. At best they could decide that any third party can sell genuine products, but only if they provide Amazon with proof with supplier invoices that the products are genuine.
Currently it’s believed that there are around 2,000 companies registered with Amazon Brand Registry, but that number is growing and Nike is simply the latest high profile name to sign up.
If you sell products from a brand, the best advice is to do everything you can to get close to the manufacturer and if at all possible get registered as an authorised retailer for that brand. If you’re not authorised then there will be no grace period or notice given, one day you could wake up to find you’ve a warehouse full of stock and your Amazon business has been turned off. Even worse, if you use FBA you could be paying Amazon for the return of your stock.
6 Responses
It’s not that easy or quick to get Amazon to remove sellers even if you have brand registry.
Having said that Nike may get better support than our brand as it’s a little smaller and not so well known…..
Does Amazon have a way for sellers to see if a brand has registered for Brand Registry?
It’s not seeing the invoices or letter that’s this issue – it’s the £3k non refundable deposit that is unacceptable
I have Amazon brand registry and it doesn’t stop my Indonesian dopplegangers hijacking my listings. How come Nike doesn’t have this problem?
I was once in danger of being in a band – whatever happened to long hair, questionably tight leather trousers, and a flagrant disregard for corporation tax?