Amazon's marketplace presents both golden opportunities and formidable challenges for sellers. After painstakingly developing best-selling products, many merchants find themselves under siege from hijackers who engage in cross-marketplace listing manipulations—an increasingly sophisticated threat that's proving difficult to combat.
The Growing Plague of Product Hijacking
Seller forums echo with frustration as merchants describe their struggles against hijackers. "No matter how many times we modify our listings, they always seem to catch up," one seller lamented. Another newcomer shared their discouragement: "Just as my two-month effort started showing results, hijackers appeared—it's completely demoralizing."
With peak seasons approaching, protecting sales from hijackers has become the paramount concern for Amazon merchants worldwide.
Cross-Marketplace Hijacking: The Stealth Threat
Cross-marketplace hijacking operates like hidden sabotage. Exploiting Amazon's listing policies, hijackers use specialized tools to identify successful products by ASIN/UPC and replicate them across different regional marketplaces.
This practice creates a dangerous domino effect—reviews from the original listing automatically sync to the new marketplace, meaning negative feedback from one region can contaminate performance across all markets.
Key dangers of cross-marketplace hijacking:
- Listing fragmentation: Product variations become separated, damaging overall listing performance.
- Unexpected negative reviews: Imported bad reviews from other marketplaces significantly reduce conversion rates.
- Profit erosion: Hijackers undercut prices to siphon sales and profits from legitimate sellers.
Identifying Cross-Marketplace Hijackers
Many small-to-medium sellers operating in limited markets struggle to detect cross-regional hijacking. These methods can help uncover unauthorized listings:
- UPC verification: Use Amazon's "Catalog > Add Product" feature to check if your UPC/EAN/ASIN appears in unauthorized marketplaces.
- Review monitoring: Track product reviews closely, particularly unexplained negative feedback that may indicate hijacking activity.
- Brand searches: Search your brand name across all Amazon marketplaces to detect unauthorized usage.
Building an Anti-Hijacking Defense System
Amazon prioritizes intellectual property protection, providing sellers with legal tools to safeguard their businesses. Establishing robust IP protections remains the most effective deterrent against hijackers.
Essential first steps:
- Trademark registration: File for brand trademarks (both R and TM marks qualify) and complete Amazon's Brand Registry process.
- Patent protection: For original product designs, pursue utility, design, or invention patents to strengthen legal defenses.
A comprehensive IP strategy covering trademarks, copyrights, and patents forms the foundation for protecting sales and brand reputation.
Amazon's Brand Protection Toolkit
Registered brand owners gain access to Amazon's specialized protection programs:
1. Automated Brand Protection: Amazon's system uses registered brand data to proactively identify and remove potentially infringing listings, protecting brand names, logos, and preventing unauthorized ASIN creation.
2. Transparency Program: This initiative assigns unique Transparency codes to each product unit, creating an authentication system that blocks counterfeit listings at the point of sale.
3. Report a Violation Tool: Brand-registered sellers can directly report trademark, copyright, and patent infringements. Rights owners can also authorize representatives to submit infringement reports on their behalf.
4. Project Zero: Amazon's most advanced anti-counterfeiting program allows qualified brands to directly remove infringing listings without waiting for Amazon's review. Eligibility requires a 90%+ validity rate on previous infringement reports over six months.
Proactive Defense as Standard Practice
As hijacking tactics grow more sophisticated, Amazon sellers must implement comprehensive protection strategies. From securing intellectual property rights to leveraging Amazon's brand protection programs, each defensive layer contributes to long-term business security.
In Amazon's competitive marketplace, a seller's brand represents their most valuable asset—protecting it effectively ensures sustainable business growth.