Will Seller Data Transparency Solve Amazon’s Counterfeit Problem?
Amazon thinks seller transparency will solve counterfeits on its marketplace. It won't.
As Jim Ayyad says, “mitigating the issues with counterfeiting will take much more than listing names and addresses of 3P sellers. Counterfeiters will work their way around this one pretty easily.” Yup.
Ultimately, I think this will not benefit consumers very much directly. If you are a consumer and have to do this level of due diligence on every purchase, then Amazon is already well past saving, and will be as hard to buy on as eBay. This will be a far cry from what it used to be. Amazon should be an "eyes closed" safe purchasing experience, but it is not even close to this.
Where this change should help is on branded items. It will allow brand registry users to get more information about who is reselling their products and how to get a hold of them. There is currently a whole industry built up around Amazon brand protection and monitoring.
Where it will not help is everywhere else. Who cares what the business name and address are of a knock-off product that everyone already knows is a knock-off product? The flood of these kinds of products on the site will continue, because these sellers are being encouraged by Amazon.
Suresh Chaganti expressed similar skepticism, saying he was “honestly surprised that this is being touted as something like a game changer. This is really a starting point to protect both genuine brands and customers. As a marketplace owner and having vested interest in the credibility of the goods sold there, they should have done this ages ago.” Too little, too late.
Amazon has traditionally prided itself on fixing root cause of issues. This isn't the root cause of anything. It's closing the barn door halfway while the horse left 2 months ago. After someone has been on the site abusing it for months is not the time to tell people where they live. How about some better up-front vetting? They are solving symptoms. In fact, incremental progress solving symptoms doesn't bring you closer to the solution - in any area of life. It only distracts you from the real issues.
Until one of Amazon's new announcements comes forward and says: "We think at least 30% of our selection is garbage. The same for our reviews" nothing significant will change. A sea change is needed.
What do you think the effects of this will be for eCommerce?
