Amazon Pushes Intensive Seller Verification to Stop Counterfeiters From Selling on The Platform
Creative: Vlaine Soriano, Bad Actors
Amazon stays true to its commitment to hold "bad actors accountable" by deterring them from entering the marketplace. Their Brand Protection Report discussed its plans for ramping up its seller-verification efforts.
Reports claim that their targets include having 100% of their new sellers pass verification by the end of the year if they want to sell in Amazon stores for the U.S., U.K., Canada, EU member countries, and Japan, among the few.
With seller verification, Amazon said they were "able to stop over 2.5 million attempts to create new selling accounts before they were able to publish a single product for sale, a decrease from over 6 million attempts the prior year."
Even if the number of registered brands rose to over 700,000 in 2021 (a 40% increase from the previous year), there was a decrease in the average number of infringement notices submitted by 25%- adirect effect of having a stringent seller verification process.
Key Bites:
Amazon continues to scale in-person verification, and they are targeting to reach requiring 100% of new sellers to pass the verification.
Sellers will be required to pass this if they want to sell in countries with major Amazon stores, such as the U.S., U.K., and Canada.
This program stopped counterfeiters and hijackers from creating new accounts, resulting in a more positive selling and shopping experience.
AMAZON NEWS
First E-Commerce Stores With "Buy With Prime" Buttons, Now Launched
Creative: Vlaine Soriano, Buy with Prime
The first few sites that got the "Buy with Prime" buttons can now be seen all over the net. This new feature is the e-commerce giant's way of getting direct-to-consumer brands to offload storage, delivery, and returns to Amazon.
With this feature, sellers offering products on their site can redirect shoppers to check out with Amazon Prime, making it more convenient for sellers and buyers with Amazon fulfilling their orders.
The button will be visible even if the shopper doesn't have a Prime membership. However, the checkout page will include a form prompting a Prime membership is sign-up.
Currently, this feature is available only by invitation, but Amazon will eventually roll this out to other sellers.
TRENDING
Andy Jassy’s First Year at Amazon: Undoing Bezos-Led Overexpansion
Creative: Vlaine Soriano, Era of Jassy
After Jeff Bezos stepped down in July 2021 as Amazon's CEO, he was replaced by Andy Jassy, founder and CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Through this transition, Amazon experienced many changes, ups, and downs.
In recent years, Amazon experienced a rapid expansion, and Jassy led the entire team to stop the breaks.
During the pandemic, there was an increase in demand, which led Bezos to open hundreds of new warehouses, sorting centers, and other logistics facilities and even doubled its workforce to more than 1.6 million people.
With these additional expenses, Jassy targeted cutting back excesses of e-commerce operation the company expanded during much of the pandemic. He did this while working on the supply, labor, and delivery speeds.
Although the expansion efforts helped the business for a time, the demand hasn't kept pace with the planned capacity, especially now that people are going back to in-person shopping.
Amazon's stock price has fallen by more than a third, erasing more than $600 billion in market value. This is something that Jassy and his team are currently working on. One of the ways to do it is to sublease at least 10 million square feet of excess warehouse space.
Aside from giving remedy to what Amazon lost in recent years, his new focus is to improve in other ways other than rapid growth.
Amazon Web Services, the cloud-computing division Jassy had run since 2006, experienced an increase of 32% in quarterly sales. The cloud business had long been, and still is, Amazon's cash cow.
The new CEO is spending a lot of his time on Amazon's growth areas, particularly with digital advertising and Prime video businesses, while Dave Clark, a newly appointed 23-year veteran, is in charge of logistics operations.
Clark presented his 3-year plan, which consisted of methods to help Amazon get out of the spot it is currently in. This included reducing the massive warehousing network and its worker base through attrition.
"We're very focused on profitability. I'm confident we'll get back to a healthy level of profitability in our consumer business," Jassy said at the shareholder meeting the same day. "We're working really hard on it."
ACTIONABLE ADVICE
What is the Amazon FBA New Selection Program?
If you were to learn of an opportunity to sell new products with FBA for free, you'd take it, right? With the FBA New Selection Program, you can easily launch your products at a more cost-effective rate. It's Amazon's way of encouraging sellers to launch new products on the platform with FBA without worrying about costs.
Here's what you can get from it:
An unlimited number of new-to-FBA ASINs: Once enrolled, you can use the fee waiver for an unlimited number of new-to-FBA parent ASINs. So if you're launching 100 new products a month, these are eligible for the program.
Free monthly storage and liquidations for Standard-size ASINs: No monthly storage fees will be charged for the first 50 units of each new parent ASIN for 90 days after the first unit is received at the fulfillment center. Once you exceed this 50-unit limit, the remaining units will be subject to the usual FBA fees.
Additional benefits for apparel and shoes: If you're selling in this category, you can enjoy free monthly storage fees for the first 100 units of each new standard-size parent ASIN for 120 days after receiving the first unit at a fulfillment center. In addition, you can liquidate any of these 100 units within 180 days after the first inventory-received date, with no liquidation fees.
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