Amazon Cracking Down On Counterfeit Electronics Products
Amazon is partnering with a government watchdog in the US to stamp out fake and counterfeit goods sold on its website.
The ecommerce giant will aim to stop the products from even entering the country, Amazon announced this week.
Amazon will work with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Centre, which is a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to combat the issue and protect consumers.
Counterfeit and fake goods being sold via Amazon’s website is an increasingly prevalent issue for the Jeff Bezos-owned retailer.
Amazon told Business Insider it plans on conducting physical inspections of goods, including electronics products, as they cross the border into the US.
Last year, Amazon invested over $US500 million into anti-counterfeit measures and this year the company established a Counterfeit Crimes Unit to look into suspected fake items and levy legal action against sellers.
The counterfeit crackdown comes as Amazon is under the spotlight for its alleged unfair treatment of third-party sellers.
Amazon’s Marketplace platform allows third-party businesses to sell their goods to Amazon’s huge customer base. In Q2 of 2020, 53% of all items purchased on Amazon were sold via third-party sellers.
But sellers have complained Amazon makes it difficult for them to sell their products and compete with Amazon-branded goods. The company has also been accused of freezing accounts of small business owners and blocking them from selling their products.
One retailer, Barak Govani, was unfairly blocked from Amazon and $800,000 worth of products seized when the retailer falsely suspected he was peddling counterfeit goods, Bloomberg reports.
“That inventory was everything I had. Amazon ruined my life, and I did nothing wrong,” Govani says
Small businesses like Govani’s rely heavily on Amazon to make a living and are rendered powerless when the company decides to cut off income streams.