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Is this the end of selling collectibles and brand collaboration items on Amazon?
As everyone in the Amazon Seller Community knows, the company’s listing catalogue is constantly being scanned by automated bots whose job is to detect non-compliant listings and pro-actively block them.
Unfortunately, due to these efforts, millions of legitimate listings are removed from the platform every day, without any path to have them restored.
Every Product Detail Page (ASIN) on Amazon contains a single ”Brand” field, which can be only filled with one answer. However, there are products – including collaborations, limited editions and collectibles, which contain numerous different brand names and trademarked terms grouped together.
This includes, by the way of example: Barbie x Sinsay, Adidas x Star Wars, H&M x Harry Potter, NECA x Hunger Games, Kinder x FunkoPop, Disney x Sanrio and thousands of similar official collaborations.
Since only a single ”Brand name” can be inserted into the relevant field, any other trademarked terms are triggering Suspected Intellectual Property Rights Infringement Complaints. These are impossible to get removed, appealed or lifted, since Amazon expects any third party trademarked terms to get removed from such listings.
My advice for any sellers of collaborations and multi-brand items is to sell them elsewhere, including eBay, Bonanza, Ecrater, Shopify or on your own website.
Here is a screenshot containing examples of several such erroneously removed ASINs of official licensed collaboration merchandise:
Here is a copy of the wording on an e-mail notification send to third party Amazon Sellers regarding the matter:
| Action required: Your Amazon seller listings have been deactivated
Dear seller, We have deactivated the listings shown at the bottom of this email. Why is this happening? Adhering to Amazon’s policies is important because it reflects the quality of the Amazon customer experience that you create when selling in our store. We have found that one or more of your listings have violated Amazon policies. We have included details of the specific policy violations related to each removed listing at the bottom of this email. Please ensure that the products you offer comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and Amazon’s policies listed in this email. We are here to help. If you have questions about this policy or your account, contact us at https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/cu/contact-us. How do I reinstate my listing? Refer to the “How do I reinstate my listings?” section below for specific details on how to reinstate the removed listings. Have your listings been removed in error? If you believe there has been an error, please submit an explanation. Your explanation should include the following information: How do I send the required information? Submit this information at https://sellercentral.amazon.se/performance/dashboard. What happens if I do not send the requested information? If you do not take steps to address the policy violations and incur additional violations, your Amazon selling account may be deactivated. You can view your account performance at https://sellercentral.amazon.se/performance/dashboard or by selecting Account health on the home page of the Amazon Seller app on your iOS or Android device. The Account health page shows how well your account is performing against the performance metrics and policies that are required to sell on Amazon. Thank you. ASIN(s): xxxxx Why is this happening? We have taken this measure because we suspect your listings may infringe on the intellectual property of others. The listings are using a trademarked term on their detail pages, but their brand names do not match the rights owner of the trademarked term. This is likely to cause confusion as to the source, endorsement, or affiliation of the goods, and is a violation of the Amazon Intellectual Property Policy for Sellers, which can be reviewed at: How do I reinstate my listing? The ASINs will be reactivated automatically if their detail pages are edited in one of the following ways: If you are appealing on the basis that you have authorization from the trademark owner, you will need to provide a letter of authorization or a licensing agreement that meets the following criteria: – Includes name and address of rights owner. |
Here you can watch my YouTube video explaining the matter and discussing Suspected Intellectual Property Rights Infringement Complaints (which starts as a Christmas-themed video):
I hope you found this article helpful. Many Amazon sellers recently started trading stocks and crypto currencies, hoping to diversify their income, which is a very good idea with all the uncertainty which comes with the platform. For this reason, we launched a new Facebook group, Crypto Arbitrage Income (Bitcoin, Crypto, Altcoins, Blockchain, Trading) – feel free to join us and forget about the troubles of selling on Amazon for a moment!
Regarding Amazon Seller Performance, you can always participate in our Amazon Seller Performance – Friendly Advice – Worldwide group, where you will be very welcome.
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