Inquiry and Concerns Regarding Amazon’s Policy on Unauthorized Listing Hijacking
Dear Amazon,
As a new seller on your platform, I have some concerns and questions regarding the policy that allows unauthorized sellers to "hijack" product listings. I would deeply appreciate your clarification on the following points:
1. Impact on Customer Experience and Brand Integrity:
I understand that Amazon operates under the principle of "customer obsession." However, how is it consistent with this principle to allow unauthorized sellers to hijack listings for brands or stores they have no affiliation with? These sellers often offer products at lower prices, but the issue lies in the fact that many of them deliver defective or counterfeit items to customers. As a result, customers have a poor experience and blame the original listing owner, damaging their reputation. This seems unfair to sellers like me who focus on delivering high-quality products and ensuring customer satisfaction.
2. Contradiction Between Amazon’s Strict Branding Rules and Hijacking Behavior:
Amazon has implemented increasingly strict guidelines for brand registration, making it clear that once a new listing is created, the brand name and product details cannot be easily changed. Many sellers invest heavily in branding, including logos and packaging, to differentiate their products. So, how does Amazon reconcile this policy with the allowance of unauthorized sellers to hijack listings? If these hijackers are not authorized, how can they legitimately have the exact same branded product to sell?
3. Fairness to Dedicated Sellers:
I chose Amazon as my primary sales platform because of its established and seemingly fair policies. However, the policy allowing listing hijacking undermines this perception. It feels unfair and disheartening that sellers who are committed to delivering excellent products and customer service are penalized by losing the buy box to hijackers offering lower-quality items.
4. Potential Violation of Amazon's Anti-Counterfeit Policy:
While Amazon prohibits the sale of counterfeit goods, allowing unauthorized sellers to hijack listings implicitly contradicts this rule. In most cases, these hijackers are not selling authentic products—they disrupt the market, deliver counterfeit goods, and often shut down their accounts after making quick profits. This leaves responsible sellers, who prioritize customer satisfaction, to bear the financial and reputational losses caused by counterfeiters.
As a genuine and dedicated seller, I sincerely request Amazon to provide clarity on the rules around unauthorized hijacking and whether there are plans to address this issue in a way that better protects sellers who operate with integrity.
Thank you for taking the time to address my concerns.
Best regards,
4 replies
Dougal_Amazon
Hello @Seller_e9kQpCllmtxme,
My name is Dougal from the Community Manager Team and I can address the concerns you have raised here. I do appreciate the time you have taken to organize your questions and provide additional detail regarding your and other sellers experiences.
First, I want to be clear that Amazon does not allow hijacking nor define it via Seller Help pages so it is difficult to provide answers to your questions how they are currently phrased, but I will certainly make an attempt.
In the US Forums, Sellers have used the term hijacking to describe losing buy box, having new offers be available on detail pages and for actual changes to the brand name. Each of these are different issues and require a deeper dive into the actual ASIN(S) to identify what is going on and if there is a violation to policy or not.
Here are some resources that respond to some parts of your questions and how:
- Intellectual Property for Rights Owners, specifically the "Types of notices not accepted on Amazon," section and the "Exclusive Distribution," bullet point
- Report Infringement Form and the "We Do Not Enforce," section of that form
- Suggest changes to your product detail page - the entire help page has a lot of relevant information, but the "How we choose information for the detail page," section address a few areas you brought up.
Of course with all this talk of what is "Allowed," and what isn't, there is still the very real issue of bad actors still being able to make changes or use bad actor tactics. For these unfortunately circumstances, we (Community Managers) want to help and can. Please take a look at the Protect Your Brand from Unauthorized Brand Name Changes on Amazon - Here's How discussion that started last month for what we (Community Managers) need to help you work through these situations.
I hope this provides some more context to the wholistic issue and what resources you have available. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
best, Dougal
Seller_BeWo5Xt3t43rn
develop your brand on your own website not here! It is much more rewarding to build your reputation on a site that protects your listing like EBAY. Alternatively you could sell a product on AMAZON successfully if you have exclusive rights to sell here from the manufacturer or at least the manufacturer maintains a short list of sellers with rights to sell on AMAZON and strictly enforces the list, often called the white paper.
