Today at Amazon Accelerate: Amazon Announces Product Opportunity Explorer to Help Third-Party Sellers Identify New Products to Sell in Amazon’s Store – BUSINESS WIRE

Product Opportunity Explorer provides third-party sellers with detailed insights into what customers are searching for, clicking on, and buying, as well as sales history, pricing trends, and more. Amazon is testing Product Opportunity Explorer in a beta program through the end of the year and will expand the tool to all sellers throughout 2022. Amazon is testing a new tool to help sellers launch new products on the site. Product Opportunity Explorer will give data and recommendations specifically relevant to their business. Amazon invested more than $18 billion in logistics, tools, services, programs, and teams for sellers last year.

At Amazon, Some Brands Get More Protection From Fakes Than Others – BLOOMBERG

Amazon’s marketplace has long been plagued with fakes. Amazon by 2016 had begun requiring would-be sellers of a select group of products to get permission to list them. The company doesn’t publicize the program, but in the merchant community it has become known as “brand gating”. Other sellers were listing their own “Ripple Rugs,” violating his designs and copyright. An Amazon spokesperson says the company does not allow counterfeits.

The company offers sellers tools to more quickly remove counterfeit listings. Amazon has deliberately made it easy for anyone to list a product on the site. For some product categories, such as jewelry and DVDs, sellers require Amazon’s approval to hang out a shingle. If someone claims they have a product to sell, Amazon’s presumption is that it’s genuine. Amazon is reluctant to hand out brand-gating protection because it wants to ensure the marketplace is competitive.

The more products Amazon protects, the less chance a wholesaler might emerge who can offer customers a better price. Some brands find themselves in a constant war with counterfeiters. The Amazon seller Stringer purchased from offered apologies, $15 back or a full refund if the product was returned. Amazon had enabled “Proactive Protections” for his listing. SnugglyCat owner: “How many companies are going to go through all this?”.

Amazon Created Knockoffs, Doctored Search Results in India – Reuters

Amazon has been accused of copying successful products sold on its marketplace in India and offering them back as Amazon-branded. Internal documents from 2016 show how a clandestine operation reviewed data from Amazon. to create cloned products, then manipulated search results to place its items at the top. Amazon has denied the allegations and called them “unsubstantiated”.