Amazon’s Brand Protection Report highlights the company’s efforts to protect brands, consumers, and selling partners from the proliferation of counterfeit products.
On April 4, 2023, Amazon released its third annual Brand Protection Report in Singapore. The report highlights how the company’s industry-leading experts and technology have increasingly prevented millions of counterfeit products and deterred bad actors from entering the global supply chain.
Amazon has successfully stopped bad actors and disposed of more than six million counterfeit products in 2022. The company’s efforts have prevented them from reaching customers and being resold in the market.
In a virtual media briefing that MartechAsia participated in, Anna Dalla Val, Director of Global Brand Relations at Amazon, discussed Amazon’s progress in 2022 against counterfeiters and bad actors.
Counterfeit Products are a Worldwide Problem
In 2022, Singapore Police Force observed a 74.5 percent rise in e-commerce scam cases, wherein victims were cheated of S$21.3 million, 261 percent higher than in 2021. As consumers and retailers face fear and uncertainty regarding online shopping, Amazon is improving its efforts and commitment to providing businesses with a trustworthy and safe ecosystem. These brand protection efforts include implementing robust, proactive controls, like machine learning and powerful tools. They prevent counterfeit and intellectual property fraud, allowing businesses to build long-term customers and go global.
Anna Dalla Val explained that Amazon had detected eight billion daily attempts during the pandemic. The company decided to bolster its brand protection efforts, preventing counterfeiting using advanced machine learning with a sophisticated algorithm to detect incorrect patterns and logos. She said, “We aim to be a zero counterfeit online marketplace. We have a team of data scientists and investigators to identify patterns of infringement. Amazon works with law enforcement and brands worldwide to stop the listing and sales of counterfeit products online.”
Marketing and Sales Impacts of a Counterfeit-Free Platform
MartechAsia asked Dalla Val about the marketing and sales impacts of having a counterfeit-free marketplace. She said, “Instead of worrying about fraud, we want sellers to spend more energy on marketing and sales. For this reason, we invest in advanced machine learning and other technologies to protect entrepreneurs from small to big brands. We also have notable law enforcement and brand partnerships and collaborations in APAC and across the globe to combat counterfeiting.”
Amazon Brand Protection Report
Over the years, Amazon has set forth various counterfeit measures to provide a safe online marketplace for everyone.
Amazon’s Brand Protection Report demonstrates how the company progresses in using robust, proactive controls, developing powerful tools, holding bad actors accountable, and educating customers to protect brands, customers, and selling partners.
- Increasingly Deterring Bad Actors
Amazon implements robust seller verification with machine learning-based detection to deter bad actors from creating new Amazon selling accounts. In 2020, Amazon launched “Project Zero” in seven new countries, including Singapore, Turkey, the UAE, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Brazil. Today, Project Zero continues to empower brands to drive counterfeits to zero across 17 Amazon stores worldwide.
Project Zero combines the advanced technology and innovation of Amazon to detect counterfeit products using automated protections, a self-service counterfeit removal tool, and product serialization. Amazon’s automated protections continuously and proactively scan over five billion daily product listing attempts to search for suspicious listings.
Amazon sellers can use the self-service counterfeit removal tool to remove listings directly from Amazon’s stores. Product serialization is unique-code enabled that brands can apply within their manufacturing and packaging process. Amazon can use it to authenticate every single purchase, detecting counterfeit products.
In 2022, Amazon stopped more than 800,000 attempts of bad actors to create new selling accounts. This similar effort prevented bad actors from listing a single product for sale, reducing the number from 6 million attempts in 2020 to 2.5 million in 2021.
- Expanded Adoption of Brand Protection Tools
Amazon continuously improves its automated protection technologies with tight brand partnerships to detect and report infringements. The company’s brand protection programs prompted brands to report infringement in the Brand Registry. As a result of anti-infringement efforts, the reported cases have decreased by more than 35 percent.
In 2021, Amazon launched the Intellectual Property (IP) Accelerator, making it easier and cost-effective for businesses to obtain trademarks and protect brands against infringement. This brand protection tool connects small-medium businesses (SMBs) with highly skilled lawyers in drafting trademark applications.
- Holding Counterfeiters Accountable
Amazon aims to dismantle counterfeit organizations. In fact, Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit referred to law enforcement and sued more than 1,300 criminals in the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, and China in 2022. These efforts aimed to deter bad actors. The company has identified, seized, and appropriately disposed of over six million counterfeit products.
- Strengthening Consumer Education
Amazon partnered with the United States Chamber of Commerce and the US Customs and Border Protection. These partnerships aim to build marketing campaigns to educate consumers about safe online shopping and how to ensure they only buy authentic products. These campaigns have already reached more than 70 million consumers in the United States.
