Video 4: Dirty Tricks That Rogue Sellers Use to Devastate Brand Value

The 8th trick we see is what a rogue seller poses as the agent of a brand, or the brand itself, and follows a false claim with Amazon. In order to get competing sellers removed from product listings, in some cases, says using a legal provision of the DMCA and takes a form of a DMCA takedown request. Because this dirty trick can be done online by anyone using a web form and a fresh email address and Amazon will often suspend your account first, and then push you to contact the complainant. It’d be tough to resolve accusations.

We’ve seen cases where the brand itself received notification of infringement and is unable to be a seller of the brand’s own products. Until the issue is resolved. Amazon may not devote resources to investigate who really owns the IP in question. So the burden of proof can be upon you as the accused to prove that you have the right to sell the product your product. To resolve this, we find that normally a response attached to an official company email accompanied by documentation showing the registration of your trademark and intellectual property. We’ll clear the issue with Amazon. However, if that doesn’t work, we recommend that you involve a good intellectual property rights attorney with knowledge of Amazon to research the complaint and respond. If you are the owner of intellectual property in question, you may want to consider filing a DMCA counterclaim. Just know that filing a counterclaim can reduce legal risk.

Because if the original partner that filed the complaint does have legal rights that are being infringed, as opposed to a rogue seller abusing the Amazon reporting system, a lawsuit, and potentially legal penalties under DMCA could be triggered. So have your attorney review their complaint to see if their claims can be legally substantiated first, but if they can’t support their claim, your counterclaim with Amazon will basically require the rogue seller to seek a legal injunction against you, in order for their products be listed again on Amazon. In essence, the counterclaim is basically illegal way of demanding that they put up or shut up.

The 9th trick that rogue sellers use to hurt your brand is attempting to hide violations of your reseller pricing policies through some technical barrier. Sometimes, they’ll do this by requiring that consumers add the product to the shopping cart to see the true price. The price listed on the original site, maybe above matte price, but then when the product is added to the cart, the price drops below map. To combat this, you must use a monitoring platform like TrackStreet, which can check product pricing not only on the page, but in the cart too. And you may want to look at your progress into places where violations have been detected, just to ensure they’re not trying other tricks like requiring that consumers hover over an image to see the true price or automatically applying or freely passing out promotion codes that alter the price in the shopping cart.

The 10th dirty trick we see is to dynamically change prices for different buyers viewing the same product. Some websites have the ability to change prices dynamically based on what they know about the shopper. For example. One buyer from a small farming community in the south may receive a more aggressive price because their geographic areas associated with less disposable income. While a different consumer shopping from a place like California, where prices in general may be higher and disposable income may be greater. Well, they may see a higher price for that same product. Or someone visiting from an outdated a web browser might be considered less tech savvy and therefore less likely to comparison shop and then they would receive a higher price. The problem is this type of behavior can be caused by consumers. And if it triggers, angry comments or reviews can handle your brand reputation as much as the sellers. That’s why it’s so important to use a brand protection platform that will monitor more than Just price points across a variety of merchandising or selling conditions, but also the satisfaction level of consumers right by the buy button. Product Review tracking is one module on TrackStreet’s platform that can give you an edge by showing you exactly what’s happening with your internet sales channel so that you can respond to problems as they appear.

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