Amazon has recently announced its latest advancements in counterfeit prevention for customers, brands, and selling partners with the publication of its third annual Brand Protection Report. This new report aims to further strengthen Amazon’s anti-counterfeit measures to provide a safer and more trustworthy shopping experience for all.

Counterfeiting is a global problem that harms legitimate businesses and puts consumers at risk. According to the International Chamber of Commerce, the global economic value of counterfeiting and piracy is estimated to cost $4.2 trillion. This is a significant threat to the economy, jobs, and public health and safety.

Amazon Brand Protection Report

The Amazon Brand Protection Report focuses on four key areas:

• Increasingly Deterring Bad Actors: Amazon’s robust seller verification, including connecting one-on-one with prospective sellers through video chat, coupled with continued advancements in machine learning-based detection, deter bad actors from even attempting to create new Amazon selling accounts. In 2022, Amazon stopped over 800,000 attempts to create new selling accounts, preventing bad actors from publishing a single product for sale—down from 2.5 million attempts in 2021 and 6 million attempts in 2020.
• Expanded Adoption of Brand Protection Tools: Amazon continues to improve its automated protection technologies which leverage the online marketplace’s partnership with brands enrolled in Brand Registry and the data they provide, reducing the need for brands to find and report infringements. In 2022, the adoption of Amazon’s brand protection programs continued to grow—and at the same time, the absolute number of valid notices of infringement filed by brands in the Brand Registry decreased by over 35%.
• Holding Counterfeiters Accountable and Stopping Them From Abusing The Marketplace and Consumers: Amazon’s efforts to identify and dismantle counterfeit organisations are working and making a positive impact. In 2022, Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit sued or referred for investigation over 1,300 criminals in the US, UK, EU, and China. In addition, Amazon continues to partner with brands and law enforcement to not only stop these bad actors but also work to go upstream from the counterfeit signals it detects to identify, seize, and appropriately dispose of over six million counterfeit products. This work prevented these counterfeit products from being resold anywhere in the supply chain.
• Strengthening Consumer Education: In partnership with the US Chamber of Commerce and US Customs and Border Protection, Amazon built marketing campaigns that helped educate consumers about how to shop safely and ensure they were purchasing authentic products while ensuring they understood the harm and dangers of buying counterfeits. These campaigns reached over 70 million consumers in the US.

Staying Ahead of Bad Actors

Speaking to journalists, Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s Vice President of Worldwide Selling Partner Services, said, “We take pride in the progress our organisation has made this past year, specifically further evolving our technology to stay ahead of bad actors and doubling down on our criminal referral and litigation efforts. We’re appreciative of the growing industry-wide collaboration in this space and look forward to continuing to innovate and work together to drive counterfeits to zero.”

Protecting Brands and Consumers

If Amazon is to be successful in attracting more big-name and luxury brands to its online marketplace, it needs to be seen to be doing more to protect brands and consumers from counterfeit products. The question many brand owners will be asking is whether Amazon is doing enough to make the marketplace a more attractive place to sell.

These improvements follow the recent news that Amazon is attempting to clean up the marketplace by clamping down on frequently returned products.

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