Amazon Sellers News 11/25/19 with CJ Rosenbaum: Amz Seller 3rd Party Vendors & Intellectual Property Complaints
You are responsible for whatever Amazon Seller 3rd Party Vendors you use.
Any service providers, if you’re using a gating service or review service, if you’re getting your pictures from another company or they’re taking pictures for you. Facebook marketing, if you’re using virtual assistants anywhere on earth, you are responsible for what they do. If you’re using people to help with coupon codes, you are responsible. You can’t give a 98% off coupon code. It doesn’t work. It’ll get you in trouble. Even UPS, FedEx, United States Postal Service, you are responsible for everybody as an Amazon seller. It’s in the new terms of service and it even includes companies that provide fake documents to sellers.
So if you are thinking about using a company to get you a fake FDA or Food and Drug Administration document, think twice about it. The same thing if you’re getting the child protection certification. If you get a fake document, you are 100% responsible and this is breaking news because we’re seeing a rise in a number of Amazon sellers who are getting suspended for what other companies and what other people are doing on their accounts. The breaking news is that these suspensions are just continuing in nature. I don’t want to beat a dead horse.
Now, if you are selling products that come in multi-packs or in bundles and they’re breaking it down and then repackaging it, you can’t stick your trademark on it.
If you’re taking Starburst and you’re dividing it by color, it’s still Starburst candy. You can’t put your own name on it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Starburst, jelly beans, lollipops or M&Ms. You can’t take products that are owned by somebody else, divide them into the blues and the reds and the greens and stick them in your own packaging with your logo. That is absolutely an IP violation and we’re seeing a lot of calls of this coming in. So you can’t take packages that are bundled, splitting up and then claim it’s your own intellectual property.