Amazon is taking major steps to silence one of
the long-held criticisms against its marketplace: the prevalence of counterfeit
products. In late February, the e-Commerce giant launched
Project Zero, a set of three tools combining Amazon’s machine
learning capabilities with retailers’ knowledge of their own brands to detect
fake products before a purchase is made.
Amazon relies heavily on third-party sellers for product
listings and fulfillment. These sellers aren’t affiliated with the brands
that they sell, but since their listings make up half
of the items sold on Amazon, it’s becoming ever more important
for the company to ensure consumers are getting exactly what they pay for.
The RTP team discusses
whether the Project Zero launch will be enough to restore trust with retailers,
and whether the risk of putting your products on a marketplace is worth the
extra sales that can be generated.
Adam Blair, Editor: I
applaud Amazon for bringing up-to-date technology (machine learning) and common-sense
protections (product serialization) to the fight against counterfeit products
with its Project Zero initiative. It must be incredibly
frustrating — not to mention harmful to the bottom line — when brands that have
worked hard to create quality products and build up a positive image get
undersold by fakes. But as with anything that concerns Amazon, I have my
reservations as well. Technology is only as effective as the corporate mandates
that stand behind it. It’s easy to think that Amazon’s relentless focus on the
customer means the company might,
possibly, maybe be that much less worried about the concerns of the brands
that sell on its marketplace. I’m not saying Amazon is insincere in its desire
to root out counterfeit products — but perhaps the most hopeful element of
Project Zero is that it gives some control to the retailers themselves, via a
self-service counterfeit removal tool.
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Glenn Taylor, Senior
Editor: These developments were a long time coming, and while they probably
won’t solve every issue out there, I like the fact that retailers are getting
more of a chance to remove counterfeit products themselves, giving them at
least a bit more autonomy in the situation. Amazon should still be the one
primarily responsible for eliminating these issues before they happen, however.
The pilot software was able to proactively stop 100X more
suspected counterfeit products than the number Amazon reactively removed based
on reports from brands. That’s an impressive statistic, but it does raise some
questions: Were the previous
anti-counterfeiting measures at all effective? And, How much higher is the number of actual counterfeit items Amazon still
hasn’t tracked? If the pilot stopped 100X more fake products from hitting
the market than before, then the “spring cleaning” of fakes has only just begun.
I guess either way Amazon finally had to start somewhere.
Bryan Wassel,
Associate Editor: While I think the cat is out of the bag regarding Amazon’s
ability (or lack thereof) to fight counterfeits, I also think the marketplace
is too ubiquitous for any but the biggest and smallest brands to pull their
products. Large, established companies like Birkenstock have a huge network of retail partners to sell through,
and their own name recognition gives these brands the clout needed to be
formidable retailers in their own right. Retail startups can afford to grow at
a slower pace if they maintain their image, and they might even play up the choice
to forego Amazon as proof of an independent reputation. However, most brands
simply can’t afford to pass up the opportunity Amazon presents. Sellers and
brands will be haunted by the negative reputation Amazon garnered with its
previously weak policing, and Amazon Zero will have to be a major success to
overcome the perceptions of the (very) recent past.
