Amazon Informing Sellers Who Have Received FALSE Counterfeit Complaints If Test Buys Were Done
Counterfeit complaints against Amazon 3P sellers are getting weaker and weaker by the minute.
That might be a bit of an exaggeration. Amazon is showing some sellers who have been subjected to false counterfeit complaints which ones were made without there being a test buy behind it.
So, what am I talking about? If you don’t know about test buys, if a brand thinks you’re selling counterfeit products or unauthorized sales where it’s outside the first-sale doctrine, what we do when we’re protecting private label brands and the hundreds of brands that we represent is we do test buys. When you do that, you can definitively identify whether a counterfeit product showed up or if a product showed up that is outside the first-sale doctrine.
So Amazon is now letting you know when there was a test buy and when there was not a test buy.
What does this do for Amazon sellers? It increases your leverage tenfold, because if you have been subjected to a false counterfeit complaint, you have two legal claims against that brand, defamation and interference with your contract with Amazon. And if they didn’t even bother to do a test buy to confirm whether your products were genuine or counterfeit or within / outside the first-sale doctrine, your leverage is even greater to go back to that brand / complainant, and be like, “Hey, you better retract that complaint or I am coming after you just like CJ went after the Dallas Cowboys.”