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Hopefully some of you can chime in and help out, as this has been driving me absolutely insane.
Let's start from the beginning...
I've personally been selling my business's products on Amazon for several years now (as well as my own site and others). My brand's products, reputation, and sales have all improved over this entire timespan.
*Enter hijackers*
Actually, hijackers is being way too nice - for the rest of this thread, I'm going to refer to them as thieves.
Long story short here - I've had problems with thieves before, but they always seemed to disappear very quickly, usually after a quick message to them.
This time, I've had 3 different thieves on my listing, all of them dead-set on sticking around at all costs, even after several very direct emails and cease-and-desists.
I've managed to get rid of 2 of them, but 1 still remains and I've had to constantly lower my price to fight for the buy box to the point where I'm at my break even price now, 57% off my normal selling price.
Here's the catch though (as if it wasn't bad enough already). My product is not easily replicated, and while this thief is selling an item that looks like mine, they are 100% selling a counterfeit version that is of inferior quality, and I've had a hell of a time getting Amazon to do a damn thing about it! Despite providing clear evidence and photo proof of the differences.
As a result of this whole mess, the product that's been hijacked (my best selling product) has received at least 20 1-star reviews at this point with people complaining of the problem. You'd think this would be enough evidence for Amazon if my photo proof wasn't already, right? Wrong. They still haven't done anything.
Disclaimer: I am not enrolled in Amazon's brand registry 2.0, as I am waiting to receive my registered trademark still, which will still take several more months. This is not just a matter of brand rights though; this is a matter of a counterfeit product, and Amazon seems like they couldn't give 2 shits that their customers (and mine) are being blatantly ripped off.
Where I'm at now:
I've lowered my price to win the buy box to avoid any more people leaving 1-star reviews, but am pretty much at break-even. Even though the thief is selling a counterfeit, I'm pretty sure I have larger margins and much more inventory than them which allows me to fight back for the buy box, even though I really hate to drop my price this much (for several obvious reasons).
I'm continuing to reach out to seller support almost everyday, filing the same report about a counterfeit product (providing more detail each time), hoping that eventually I'll reach someone who is at least half competent. Apparently most of them think that because a product looks the same, it is the same.
I'm already taking steps to make sure this 100% doesn't happen in the future, but I need something to be done for the time-being.
Any advice? I'm ready to talk to an IP attorney, and take any actions necessary to make sure this thief gets the biggest dose of karma that I can manage. More importantly though, I need to get my sales, margins, listing, and reviews back to where they should rightfully be.
If you've had great success removing hijackers in a similar situation or know a good IP attorney you can refer to me, please reach out.
Let's start from the beginning...
I've personally been selling my business's products on Amazon for several years now (as well as my own site and others). My brand's products, reputation, and sales have all improved over this entire timespan.
*Enter hijackers*
Actually, hijackers is being way too nice - for the rest of this thread, I'm going to refer to them as thieves.
Long story short here - I've had problems with thieves before, but they always seemed to disappear very quickly, usually after a quick message to them.
This time, I've had 3 different thieves on my listing, all of them dead-set on sticking around at all costs, even after several very direct emails and cease-and-desists.
I've managed to get rid of 2 of them, but 1 still remains and I've had to constantly lower my price to fight for the buy box to the point where I'm at my break even price now, 57% off my normal selling price.
Here's the catch though (as if it wasn't bad enough already). My product is not easily replicated, and while this thief is selling an item that looks like mine, they are 100% selling a counterfeit version that is of inferior quality, and I've had a hell of a time getting Amazon to do a damn thing about it! Despite providing clear evidence and photo proof of the differences.
As a result of this whole mess, the product that's been hijacked (my best selling product) has received at least 20 1-star reviews at this point with people complaining of the problem. You'd think this would be enough evidence for Amazon if my photo proof wasn't already, right? Wrong. They still haven't done anything.
Disclaimer: I am not enrolled in Amazon's brand registry 2.0, as I am waiting to receive my registered trademark still, which will still take several more months. This is not just a matter of brand rights though; this is a matter of a counterfeit product, and Amazon seems like they couldn't give 2 shits that their customers (and mine) are being blatantly ripped off.
Where I'm at now:
I've lowered my price to win the buy box to avoid any more people leaving 1-star reviews, but am pretty much at break-even. Even though the thief is selling a counterfeit, I'm pretty sure I have larger margins and much more inventory than them which allows me to fight back for the buy box, even though I really hate to drop my price this much (for several obvious reasons).
I'm continuing to reach out to seller support almost everyday, filing the same report about a counterfeit product (providing more detail each time), hoping that eventually I'll reach someone who is at least half competent. Apparently most of them think that because a product looks the same, it is the same.
I'm already taking steps to make sure this 100% doesn't happen in the future, but I need something to be done for the time-being.
Any advice? I'm ready to talk to an IP attorney, and take any actions necessary to make sure this thief gets the biggest dose of karma that I can manage. More importantly though, I need to get my sales, margins, listing, and reviews back to where they should rightfully be.
If you've had great success removing hijackers in a similar situation or know a good IP attorney you can refer to me, please reach out.
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