Amazon is serious about preventing and removing hijacked and counterfeit products from its marketplace. Here are three ways you can prevent an Amazon listing hijack.

When I graduated high school, I received a gorgeous designer purse from a friend’s mom. I cherished that gift for a number of years because I never would have bought one for myself.

But years later, my friend stunned me by telling me that the purse was a knockoff. It was picked up on the streets of New York City. I was heartbroken to know that my purse was a fake. Even worse, I was embarrassed that I didn’t spot it for what it was.

Hijacked and fake products are a big problem—and they have become big business on Amazon. A recent article featured in Inc. magazine’s digital edition provided great detail about the complexities and far-reaching implications of this problem.

Amazon has taken some new actions that are currently piloting. But I’ve been digging into counterfeiting at large and thinking about what you can do—and of course what Seller Labs Pro can do for you—to prevent an Amazon listing hijack. And time will only tell how Amazon’s anti-counterfeiting Project Zero initiative develops. Here are three things that sellers and brand owners can and should do to protect themselves from hijackers:

1. Defend Against the Amazon Listing Hijack Threat, Join Amazon Brand Registry

If you’re eligible, you absolutely need to join Amazon Brand Registry. Brand Registry gives more features on the product pages that use your brand name, better ways to find and report violations, plus a host of features that will help boost your brand like A+ Brand Content, Stores, Sponsored Brands, and the Brand Dashboard. With all these benefits, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t join!

2. Watch the Buy Box with Seller Labs Pro’s Hijacked Report

On the long list of reports available in the Seller Labs Pro Performance Center application is the Hijacked report. It’s likely one you’ve seen but if you’re not reviewing it regularly, you’re taking chances that could render your business vulnerable to malicious sellers.

Like many of our reports, you’ll see key details of the listing, its stock level, and sales and profit details. But more importantly, you can see and sort what percentage of the Buy Box you regularly win. For any listed ASIN, this number shows you the percentage of page views where you appeared in the Buy Box.

For private-label sellers, you should be winning the Buy Box every time as you own the listing. So, if you sort this reporting field and see any ASINs below 100% for Buy Box wins, you know that something isn’t right, and you can take immediate action to investigate if there’s a counterfeiter at work.

3. Join Amazon’s Project Zero Waitlist

Project Zero (Amazon is currently taking names for the PZ waitlist) is a new step for Amazon that should give brands more confidence in selling on the platform. This is especially important if Amazon wants to continue building out its 1P and 3P marketplaces.

Project Zero is invitation-only at the moment. But you can join the waitlist, and in doing so you’ll gain access to a number of benefits Amazon is touting, including:

• Automated Protections: Amazon claims these machine-learning automated protections will continuously scan stores and proactively remove suspected counterfeits to the tune of over 5 billion daily listing update attempts.
• Self-Service Counterfeit Removal: Amazon states that brands will be empowered to remove counterfeit listings from Amazon themselves using a new self-service tool.
• Product Serialization: This new unique coding system allows Amazon to scan and confirm the authenticity of every one of those products purchased, ideally stopping counterfeit products from reaching the customer.

Keep Calm and Protect Your Brand

As sellers, we want to make sure that we out-maneuver potential hijackers so we can succeed in growing our businesses. But you’re also helping ensure customers don’t experience the disappointment a hijacked product could bring (something I know all too well).

Check out the Hijacked Report (and more) with your free 30-day trial of Seller Labs Pro. This is one of 10 reports that you can run to analyze your business’s overall health and profitability.