Chris bowser tips to help with Amazon Brand Rating and Review Strategy

Amazon recently announced new restrictions for third-party sellers who sell major brands on the platform, dubbed as Brand rating. In order to sell some top brands such as Adidas on Amazon marketplace, sellers must pay an extremely high fee to get approval to list these branded goods. Amazon introduced the new regulations to boost consumer confidence and tighten restrictions on who is selling top brands on Amazon, after a number of counterfeit items appeared on the marketplace.

Following  are a few tips that can be followed:

Tips for Resellers:  

• Supply the requested documentation and escalate if necessary, if amazon gates you out of your own brand
• Registering with Brand Registry will definitely help.
• Get your brand trademarked.
• Request Brand Rating from Amazon.
• Provide your authorized resellers with letters of authorization.

Tips for Private Sellers:

 

• Not receiving a gated brand notification does not mean you are exempt. Amazon often sends out their notifications and takes action in waves. They scale these changes as they have a lot of sellers.
• Listing your ‘new’ items as ‘used’ or ‘collectible’ to try to get around brand rating does not help, neither does bundling restricted brands with non-restricted brands to try to get around brand rating.
• Listing restricted brands without authorization by omitting the brand name from the listing does not
• Buying inventory from other Amazon sellers who have been gated out of selling with the intention of selling it on Amazon will not help. Amazon does not want inventory for which there isn’t adequate documentation to get approval.
• Be diligent with your suppliers.
• To see if you are authorized to sell on Amazon check your wholesale agreements.
• Speak to your suppliers about getting a letter of authorization from the brand owner to sell on Amazon.  

Though Amazon will require sellers to provide a written release to sell a brand’s products, experts speculate they probably won’t pay attention to the brand’s selling platform restrictions. The many businesses that shop around for liquidation and clearance sales and turn around and sell items for higher prices on Amazon now have to consider what happens if the e-retailer only allows listings that come from authorized resellers. Brands will benefit most from this change, but honest big resellers and distributors may also come out fine after paying fees and applying to pass through the brand gate. Smaller amazon sellers, if they can’t afford to stock branded products, may want to keep a strategic mindset and consider going into private labeling or expand into other selling platforms. More about this can be learnt from Chris Bowser through his Online auction learning center with his amazon FBA workshops and seminars.