Effective branding increases brand equity by increasing consumer loyalty through brand awareness and recognition. Creating a successful brand is just one step for ensuring profitable sales of your products. You should also obtain official trademarks for specific products within your brand to make them less vulnerable to unscrupulous resellers.
Brand registration on Amazon helps to protect your brand from intellectual property infringement and counterfeit listings of your products.
The Benefits of Brand Registration on Amazon
To obtain official brand registration on Amazon, you first need to have an actual registered trademark for your brand printed on your products or packaging. Obtaining official trademarks is time-consuming, especially if you are obtaining them from multiple countries.
However, once you have a live trademark, you have the opportunity to apply for Amazon’s brand registry. This registry offers important benefits for your brand, including:
- Protection of content listing from being altered by shady competitors
- Simplified intellectual infringement reporting
- Increased brand visibility via the use of Enhanced Brand Content and Amazon Storefront
- Faster content corrections with a dedicated internal IP team
- Access to marketing programs, such as A+ Content and Amazon Storefronts, to increase brand awareness and provide brand analyses
The Drawbacks of Brand Registration on Amazon
The additional marketing programs on Amazon are excellent tools; however, you may not realize their full utility if you are new to these programs. Analytical information overload can hinder the success of your brand. Also, while being listed on Amazon’s brand registry is an important protective layer for your brand, you should understand that risks still exist for your products.
Other Sellers Can Still Sell Your Brand
Brand registration on Amazon mainly protects the product content of your brand; it does not prevent competitors from selling your products. There are several ways that your products could still be affected by unauthorized resellers, including:
- Gray Imports – This involves the resale of your products in countries where you did not intend your products to be sold.
- MAP Undercutting – Minimum advertised pricing, or MAP, cannot be enforced on Amazon. Thus, resellers can price-cut your products with the intent to funnel sales towards their channels rather than yours.
- General Distribution – Amazon cannot enforce where products are distributed or sold.
You May Have To Be an Infringement Sentinel
For Amazon’s auto-algorithms to be more effective in tracking and identifying infringement of your brand’s content, you may have to submit as many infringement reports as you can. Their algorithms will get “smarter” with more infringement reports. Searching for infringement and making these reports can be very stressful and time-consuming.
The Solution for Brand Control on Amazon
Optimizing your brand on Amazon involves many layers of planning and analysis. At Click Fluency, we specialize in brand registration on Amazon for health and personal care brands.
Our team can help you to maintain effective brand control so that your products are less subject to infringement and opportunistic resale. We aim to protect your brand’s integrity and enhance your visibility. Reach out today to see how we can help.
Sources Used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand
https://www.webretailer.com/b/amazon-brand-registry/
https://brandservices.amazon.com/brandregistry/faq
https://clickfluency.com/the-amazon-brand-registry-tips-cost-and-features/