With all of the articles circulating about Amazon’s new brand registry program for manufacturers and private-label sellers, it can be difficult to find a clear, succinct explanation about what the specific updates are from Amazon Brand Registry 1.0 to Amazon Brand Registry 2.0. In other words, what’s new about the new program?
Here is a brief overview of the most important updates, changes and new tools and services.
WHAT’S NEW: AMAZON BRAND REGISTRY 1.0 VS. 2.0
1. Your brand name will now need a live, registered trademark
This is a new requirement unique to Amazon Brand Registry 2.0.
In the company’s quest to help keep its marketplace free of counterfeit products and listings from illegitimate sellers, Amazon has set a higher-than-ever bar for manufacturers or brand owners to establish themselves as the true owners of their brands.
For your company to gain entry into the new brand registry program and enjoy its benefits, you’ll need to provide Amazon with a government-approved registered trademark — which the Amazon Brand Registry FAQs page explains must be a “word mark and NOT a stylized illustration or design mark.”
If you don’t already have a registered trademark for your brand name, you can apply for one through the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
2. You can now publish your product content directly to the marketplace without Amazon vetting
Another new service available for the first time through Amazon Brand Registry 2.0 is the ability for the registered brand owner, or “administrator,” to create or update sales content directly to the Amazon marketplace without that content first having to be vetted by Amazon’s seller teams.
And in case you’re wondering, you can assign additional users to your brand registry account and give them publishing privileges as well. This means you can allow, for example, several staff members at your company or even a trusted reseller to publish new content directly to the Amazon.com marketplace.
3. You can now conduct a proactive search for counterfeit listings via a reverse search for proprietary text or images
Yet another first being rolled out for Amazon Brand Registry 2.0 is the ability for manufacturers and brand owners to more easily and comprehensively monitor the Amazon marketplace for illegitimate listings and intellectual-property infringement.
With the new “Report a Violation” feature set, you can conduct searches across the Amazon marketplace, based on text, images, ASINs or keywords specific to your brand. If you find illegal uses of your proprietary content, you can report them directly to Amazon through the Report a Violation tool — and the company says it will take expedited action to remove those counterfeit listings.
4. Amazon now promises to leverage its “predictive automation” tools to proactively help keep counterfeit listings of your products off of its site
With Amazon Brand Registry 2.0, the company states that it will deploy its “predictive automation” algorithms, based on brand owners’ reports of suspected violations of their intellectual property rights, and use this information to help prevent future illegal listings from ever being published on Amazon.com in the first place.
There you have it — the most significant changes Amazon Brand Registry 2.0 represents over the original version of the program.
For what it’s worth, Amazon itself describes version 2.0 as an entirely new brand protection program, rather than an incremental upgrade over the earlier version. With that in mind, the Amazon Brand Registry FAQs page points out that even if you’re already enrolled in the original program, if you signed up before April 30, 2017, you will still want to re-enroll in Amazon Brand Registry 2.0.
If you’d like help getting set up with the new brand registry program from Amazon — as well as help deploying a comprehensive Internet brand protection program — schedule a free demo of TrackStreet’s fully automated platform.
