Amazon Sellers News 11/21/19 with CJ Rosenbaum: Amazon Seller ASIN Misuse, Sending POAs & Business Verification Not Occurring in China
The big issue right now is that sellers are using trademark terms in their listings and in their back end.
So I want to review some words with you that you may or may not know are actually a trademark, but they are Ping-pong, Chapstick. Velcro is a vast term, and they enforce Velcro tremendously because they were afraid it was going to get what’s called genericized and lost. Band-Aid, Rollerblade. Onesies, those things we stick our babies in. Fiberglass, if you’re making a toy, you can’t use the word fiberglass in telling how it’s constructed. Frisbee, Hula hoop, lava lamp, memory stick, Thermos, scotch tape. And last but not least, and I know this only goes to those older folks like me, Walkman. If you had a Walkman, this was my favorite one. The sports Walkman just kicked butt, and it had that huge clip on the back. It was waterproof, and it was the best thing since sliced bread. So trademark terms, do not use them in your listings.
Plans of action for business verification.
What Amazon is doing to you that they’re not doing to sellers located in China.. When Amazon sends you a notice that they want your lease, they want your bank records, they want something to verify your business, you must send them what they’re asking for, the complete document and also a concise one page plan of action explaining something about that business verification document.
IP complaints where sellers are resolving the IP complaints, yet they get a complaint soon afterward.
Now sometimes the brands make mistakes. Sometimes brand enforcement makes mistakes and they’ll cast too wide of a net. If they’re using Brand Registry 2.0, it is very easy to include too many sellers, so don’t be surprised if you receive an IP complaint, you obtain a retraction and then boom, you get another one. It doesn’t necessarily mean the brand is doing something wrong, it’s just that they’re a bit unskilled in their brand protection.
More and more sellers have created private label brands and are enforcing their intellectual property rights on Amazon.
I’ve been saying this for years now. Developing a private label brand is the wave of the future. If you’re a seller, you know how to use the dashboard, develop your own brand, develop a product line, diversify your sources. This is how you develop an ongoing business that will last for decades that you can get investors in and that if you want a golden parachute, you could eventually sell.
The worst thing Amazon is doing to sellers in the United States that they’re not doing to sellers in China: business verifications.
We have full time staff on both coasts in China, we have two people in Yiwu, we have four people in Shenzhen. We cover the entire country. We help sellers with their factories, and what I want you to know is that Amazon, as far as we have seen, has sent practically no business verification suspensions to sellers located in China. I don’t know why, but that’s what we are seeing.