Amazon will implement new regulations in September! Non-compliant products will be removed

Recently, Amazon updated a new requirement in the background. After September 8, geographical indications will be added to the intellectual property policy of the European site. After implementation, if this item is filled in incorrectly, the product may be removed!

The Geographical Indication (GI) of the seller’s trademark is a trademark used to indicate the origin of the brand’s products to ensure product quality, characteristics, etc. This field will be a mandatory item for brand record sellers. In addition , quality is directly related to origin, so Amazon believes that there should be a more obvious connection between the product and its original place of origin.

Therefore, Amazon attaches great importance to the GI mark that is about to take effect. In the announcement, the official requires sellers to fill in the origin in the product attributes with the correct value, otherwise the product may be removed!

So at first glance, this policy can be used to prevent copycat sales and counterfeiting. If the origin is not correctly filled in, it will be removed. However, it is quite difficult to implement. The first problem is that geographical indications are not applicable to all trademarks and products.

Generally, it is only when the specific quality, reputation or other characteristics of the goods are mainly determined by the natural or cultural factors of the region. Simply put, if you leave the place of origin, you can't make this product (or the quality of the product is not as good as it should be). For example, Guizhou's Moutai, French red wine, etc., the products are highly linked to the place of origin. The manufacturer can only add a geographical indication when applying for a trademark. Seeing this, everyone should understand how difficult it is to do this. If you are a seller with a larger volume or a seller with your own factory, you can consider starting from this aspect and use the new policy to give the main products more protection. As for small and medium-sized sellers, I don't recommend considering this. Here are some brand and product protection policies that small and medium-sized sellers can generally use.

Let's start with the more ruthless brand gating. This program has been around for a while and is the most effective way to protect listings from infringement (follow-selling). To follow-sell products that participate in the brand gating program, you must not only provide the manufacturer's invoice and obtain written authorization from the brand, but also pay a high threshold fee for each brand , which can be said to completely cut off the idea of ​​following-selling. However, the advantages are also disadvantages. If you want to follow-sell yourself, you have to follow the above steps again, which is very laborious.

There is also an even more ruthless exclusive program (Amazon Exclusives), which allows participants to enjoy exclusive marketing and support teams, as well as a quick channel for reporting, effectively preventing others from copying their products. The price is that the exclusive program applies to all products sold in the store, and an additional 5% is required on the product category commission as a program fee. At the same time, you also need to promise not to sell products on channels other than Amazon, including other platforms, your own website, etc.

Finally, let's talk about the Transparency Plan, which is easy to operate for small and medium-sized sellers and has great potential. Products participating in the plan will have exclusive anti-counterfeiting QR codes. Sellers apply for QR codes before shipping and stick them on the products. All products entering the warehouse must be correctly affixed with anti-counterfeiting QR codes before they can be put on the shelves for sale. This can prevent dog sellers from investing and placing orders, and will not affect sellers who follow their own sales.

Amazon has also come up with new ways to use this QR code. After scanning the QR code, a marketing page will pop up, and sellers can customize the content of the page themselves to do secondary marketing and community promotion.

This is the new feature Engagement of the Transparency Plan, which was just launched in May of this year. Many gameplays and routines are yet to be developed by sellers. I have introduced it in detail in my previous report.