How To Remove Hijackers

Dealing with "hijackers" is one of the more unfortunate sides of selling private label products on Amazon. The most successful your products are, the more likely it is that you'll have to deal with them.

We call them hijackers because they opportunistically hop on other people's product listings and sell a similar product to the one being offered, often for a lower price which helps them win the buy box.

Only one seller can have the buy box at a time when a potential customer views a product listing, and often times the seller offering the cheapest price is who will be rewarded.

This can be infuriating for sellers that launched their own brand of products and took months/years building positive feedback and climbing the organic rank ladder, only to be undercut by someone else on their own product listing.

This illustrates the absolute necessity of trademarking your brand so that you can leverage Amazon brand registry to ward off unauthorized sellers of your goods.

Trademark registration is a slow process, so assuming you took my hint and already applied for your mark, we still need to protect our most successful listings from hijackers while we wait.

Here are some strategies I've used to remove hijackers from my Amazon FBA product listings.

Step 1: Contact The Hijacker

If you use the free DS Amazon Quick View Chrome extension, you'll be able to see when multiple sellers are selling the same product straighta way from the search results page (SERP).

Let's pretend that this is your garlic press private label product, & A second seller (the hijacker) just hopped on and undercut you.

We need to contact them immediately and try to scare them off the listing.

1. Click your product listing, and then find & click where it says New (2) from $9.99
   
2. Click the hijacker's account name link to view their Amazon seller profile
   
3. Click the "Ask a question" button
   
4. I need assistance with: An order I placed
   Tell us more about your issue: Received Wrong Item
   Click "Write message" button
   
5. Copy+paste this message, swap out the placeholders with YOUR NAME + YOUR BRAND, then click the "send e-mail" button

   Hello,

   I am [YOUR NAME] the Director of [YOUR COMPANY / SELLER ACCOUNT] and intellectual property owner of the brand [YOUR BRAND].

   I see that you have listed a [YOUR BRAND] product for sale:
   https://www.amazon.com/dp/[YOUR ASIN]

   Can you show me the receipt for your purchase of this item?

   We do not sell [YOUR BRAND] products to any re-sellers and we think that you may be selling counter-fit items. Additionally, products with our trademark are not permitted for resale on US marketplaces without our express approval.

   Here is our LIVE trademark in the United States Patent and Trademark Office database:
   [IF YOU STARTED THE TRADEMARK REGISTRATION PROCESS PROVIDE A LINK TO IT - ELSE DELETE]

   Please reply with a receipt that proves that you purchased [YOUR BRAND] products from [YOUR COMPANY / SELLER ACCOUNT], the intellectual property owner.

   OR remove your listing for this product.

   I will be contacting Amazon fraud team about this issue if I do not receive a response within 12 hours.

   credit: InternetBizUni

   
   

NOTE: This is only a warning, and the hijacker within their rights (according to Amazon) to sell your product if it's not legally protected. Fortunately, it's usually enough to scare them a listing.

Give them 24 hours to respond (Amazon mandates that sellers respond to inquiries via Amazon's messaging system within 24 hours).

If they don't get back to you, proceed to step #2.

Step 2: Contact The Hijacker Again

If the hijacker ignores your initial threat of taking action and contacting Amazon, you should reach out to them again them after ~48 hours have passed.

Use this template to again warn them that you intend to contact Amazon about their selling counterfeit goods:

credit: InternetBizUni

* NOTE: Again, this is only a warning. They still haven't technically done anything wrong... or at least, you can't prove it yet.

If they're still on your listing ~48 hours later, move on to step #3.

Step #3: Place A Test Order

Unfortunately your hijacker is being REALLY stingy, so further action will be required to get them out of the way.

You're going to need to place a test order of their product to gather proof that their goods are counterfeit.

Before ordering from them, you can attempt to save money by checking if they're using an automated re-pricer. Lower the cost of your product and checking within 15-30 minutes to see if their price is lower than yours.

Here are the next steps:

1. Navigate back to the screen that displays all sellers of your product & click the "add to cart" button from the HIJACKER
   
2. Check out as you normally would & wait for the product to arrive. You will need the following in order for Amazon to investigate your claim:
   • The ASIN/ISBN of the item's detail page and the product title.
   • The store or business name of the seller you are reporting.
   • Amazon.com Order ID of a test buy that confirms the violation.
   • Photos of the item(s) you received in the test buy.
   • A concise explanation of the violation(s) - bullet point format is best
3. When you have all of the aforementioned things ready, contact seller support & submit an "Other Issues > Report a violation" case
   

   ASIN: [ENTER ASIN]

   
   AMAZON STORE: [ENTER SELLER NAME]
   ORDER ID: [ENTER ORDER ID]
   PHOTOS: (attached)
   EXPLANATION: We believe that this vendor sold us counterfeit goods, as evidenced by the attached photos of the product that was delivered following our order (Order ID provided above). Here are some of the reasons for concern:

   REASON #1
   REASON #2
   REASON #3

   
   Don't mention anything about violating a copyright or trademark, this isn't going to their legal team, it's going to a quality assurance team member for review
   

If your report is successful, the seller should be removed from the listing within a few days of the case being reviewed by an Amazon staff member.

Step 4: Trademark Your Brand

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I've deal with hijackers in the past where I followed steps 1-3 to a tee and was still unsuccessful in removing the hijacker from one of my best selling, top-ranked products.

The reality of the situation is that you need to enroll in brand registry to TRULY protect your branded private label FBA products!

Enrolling in brand registry requires a USPTO issued trademark, and getting your trademark completed takes MONTHS regardless of how good your lawyer is.

It actually gets even better - after the trademark is issued, there's an additional 8-week waiting period before you're given the Trademark # required to submit your brand registry application.

Case and point: If you're serious about selling private label products on Amazon, you need to get the ball rolling & trademark your brand today, BEFORE it's too late.

If you're wondering, the cost of my first trademark was $250, but I had the assistance of my family lawyers which brought the cost down quite a bit. Most services charge in the $500-$800 range.

I also consulted with a seasoned lawyer that runs his own professional patent / trademark /copyright practice for over 30 years and received this quote:

• $225-$275 filing fee to the government
• $400 trademark search/research fee
• $400 filing fee

Feel free to reach out to me if you'd like an introduction to the lawyer, I would be glad to help out!