Selling on the Amazon platform is a very unique experience and I love sharing stories about it to fellow entrepreneurs. The Amazon platform has a lot of great things about it. The potential profit is the obvious one that comes to mind. But to get to the point of earning from the point where you have absolutely no inventory, no own infrastructure and not a single customer base is really something else. People thinking how far Amazon has gotten need to look at the numbers. Their website accounts for about half of all online transactions every year and the number is growing. They have a few billion kinds of different products. They partnered with over two million third party sellers. And finally, they have revolutionized the tech space by becoming one of the top cloud providers web wide.
Amazon, the juggernaut, has its selling points but has its down points too. Otherwise, one would be wondering how come not everyone and his or her dog owns a seller account. The first problem that props to mind is the sheer competition that you have to grind with every inch along the way. Competitors, big and small, have harnessed their years of experience into a set of tools that crushes newcomers. The second thing that worries people when trying out the platform is the same thing that worries people whenever they try out new things and that is the learning curve. While Amazon makes sure that the whole experience is easy for sellers to understand some convolution and complexity is indeed unavoidable. Case and point, the set of rules and policies are enclosed in contracts unlike any other. Ascertaining the simplest things that would have been a breeze on the traditional brick and mortar store becomes a taxing task on the Amazon platform. And finally we go to the most dreaded of all are the enemies of innovation. So how do we stop Amazon Hijackers? There is no one sure way to do it but indeed everybody has an opinion about it and here is mine.
Understanding How to Stop Amazon Hijackers
First things first, you cannot let hijackers hijack your goal of setting up a successful Amazon business. Amazon is a big complicated weave of interconnected entities and hijackers is only a very minute aspect of it. Thus, if that is all you are worried about, I would say that you should probably try to sober up and stop reading the online piracy horror stories. The good news is that these hijackers can be avoided with careful maneuver and a lot of precautionary measures.
If you have the merchant’s spirit in you, you cannot let an ever-present threat stop you from fulfilling your crave. Any form of business faces some unjust competition at some point but you cannot let it deter you. A complete and thorough analysis before embarking on your Amazon journey should be more than enough to protect you from hijackers.
As a bit of an experienced entrepreneur myself, I can safely say that I know a few things now that I know would have saved me back then. The bread and butter of any business is its product, but in the grand scheme of things, the things you do in the side like improving your customer base and planning your supply routes have a great effect, if not a greater effect compared to the actual product itself.
I like to describe the Amazon Hijackers in terms of analogy. As I interact with potential Amazon sellers, they also give me this fearful look upon their face but somehow they cannot put a finger to it. I think the best comparison to hijackers is the boogeyman when we are young. Albeit boogeymans are not real, or are they? They still terrify the manufacturers and innovators in the same way. So if it keeps you up at night, best you face your fears through careful and intricate planning. The bottom line here is to see how that entire boogeyman phase of yours worked out for you. It should not be a stretch to assume that it worked out well since you did grow up fine to be a potential Amazon seller, in fact.
Stop Amazon Hijackers from Hijacking Your Listing
In the broadest terms, being hijacked means having someone else sell a counterfeit, or a version of your product without any consent from you, the rightful owner of the brand. There is much to digest when this does happen to you. First, the only reason that you get hijacked is because your product is particularly popular and that should be a good thing. And second, it will be extremely frustrating and you will probably have the urge to withdraw all your products from Amazon and set up a traditional brick and mortar store.
The Amazon platform keeps a list of default sellers for each product. Being the default seller means that you will be the first option for each buyer should they not specify which seller they intend to buy from. Being the default seller means the world from Amazon sellers and there have been a lot of attempts to find out exactly how to do this. The usual Amazon shopper will rarely ever look at which seller they are buying the product from so the default seller will normally get the lion’s share of revenue.
You can try this out by logging on to the site and looking for any item. Then on the right side just of the product’s page, you can see a division that says other sellers on Amazon. Here you will see all the possible sellers that you can buy the product from. Here is where the hijackers are trying to creep their way in. If they are successful, they can replace you as the default seller and you could lose your customer base over to some counterfeit of your product. Luckily though, there are ways for you to counter this and as long as you remain vigilant, your product will stay where it is.