Follow-selling is a feature of the Amazon platform. The original intention of Amazon to set up follow-selling rules is to encourage different agents of the same brand to compete on price, benefit customers, and increase the attractiveness of the Amazon platform. However, the follow-selling policy has also brought a lot of trouble to sellers. Because once their own listings are followed, the listings can easily be dragged into price wars, thereby reducing their own profits. Therefore, it is very important to prevent follow-selling when operating a store on Amazon.
1. Combination sales of goods
Combining different goods together makes it difficult for competitors to keep up with the production speed of new goods and ultimately prevent follow-selling. There are several methods of combination sales.
(1) Hot selling + large inventory: Combine goods with good sales and goods with large inventory to form new goods.
(2) Hot selling + unpopular goods: Combine unpopular goods that competitors do not have with hot selling goods to form new goods. For example, in a shop selling kitchen utensils, soup spoons are popular, but blenders are relatively unpopular due to their narrow use. In this way, they can be sold together. This can not only increase the overall sales of the products, but also show the professionalism of the shop and facilitate customers to buy.
(3) Hot-selling + special products: Combining products for special groups with hot-selling products.
2. Registering a brand
Affix a “brand” to your listing, that is, successfully apply for brand registration on Amazon. As long as Amazon sellers register a US brand, apply for a US trademark, and apply for brand registration and protection with Amazon, the products can be protected in the United States (US site).
Registering a brand takes time. If you find that someone is copying the products of your store, it is recommended to immediately change the packaging of your store, or bundle other products (custom-made, designed products or small gifts, etc.) to sell together. This will greatly reduce the risk of being copied.
Although sellers have taken various measures, it is sometimes difficult to prevent being followed by others. If their own brand products are followed by other sellers, sellers should also take active actions to protect their listings.
1. Issue a warning to the seller who follows the seller
When encountering follow-up sales, you can first try to resolve it privately. First send a warning or persuade the other party to remove the follow-up listing. If the other party quickly listens to the advice and removes the listing, then there is no need to report the seller to Amazon. Because once Amazon operates, the other seller’s account is likely to be blocked. Therefore, it is recommended to send one or two emails to the other party in a friendly and polite manner at the beginning to persuade them to leave our listing.
2. Report to Amazon
If the seller has completed brand registration on Amazon, when encountering some stubborn follow-up sellers who have been persuaded many times but have not been effective, the seller can report the follow-up seller to Amazon, and Amazon will intervene to deal with it. So, how to complain about follow-up sellers?
Sellers can use the Test Buy method to report follow-up sellers. When you find that other sellers are copying your products, you can purchase the products of the copycat seller as a buyer, take photos of the products after receiving them, and clearly point out the differences between the counterfeit products and your genuine products, and then send these materials to the Amazon official website.