The Honest Pros and Cons Of The Amazon Brand Registry

March 28, 2017 Allison Hess

1 comment

If you’re an Amazon seller, you may have heard about “brand ownership” or the Amazon Brand Registry. It has been getting a lot of positive reviews on the manufacturer side, but it actually may be hurting some sellers and distributors. In this article, we are going to review the Amazon Brand Registry and its pros and cons for sellers like you!

 

What Is The Amazon Brand Registry?  

The Amazon Brand Registry is, simply put, Amazon’s way of giving “ownership” of a brand to a specific individual or company.

 

For example, Joe manufactures Wacky Widgets. There are a lot of re-sellers and distributors of his Wacky Widgets on Amazon. When he goes on Amazon and searches for his Wacky Widgets, he finds that one seller has incorrect information and doesn’t match other sellers with regards to descriptions, pricing, and more. Joe wants to have control and consistency of his brand, so the products are viewed the same way by all consumers.

 

Thus, Joe applies to Amazon’s Brand Registry. Because he is the manufacturer of his own private label, they approve his application. Joe now officially “owns” that brand on Amazon. (Only manufacturers or company-approved sellers can apply for the Amazon Brand Registry.)

 

This does not mean that the other sellers must stop selling Wacky Widgets on Amazon. It instead means that any information Joe submits to Amazon about his products will automatically update the product listings of all the other sellers as well. The bottom line is sellers still own their storefront, but Joe can control the way the brand appears.

 

 

The Downsides To The Amazon Brand Registry

This means that Joe can, in some way, control his competition. If Joe is selling his Wacky Widgets and Anna, a stronger seller with more experience, comes on the scene selling Wacky Widgets, Joe has more brand control than she does. Any information he submits to Amazon will be updated almost immediately.

 

This means that any product descriptions or specialized selling methods that Anna previously had on her product listings are automatically replaced with Joe’s most recently submitted information. Thus, Joe can in effect control the appearance of his competitors’ storefronts (to an extent).

 

Taking this one step further, this means that sellers are at a disadvantage to one another. Anna was having significant success with her product descriptions and listings (which benefits both her and Joe the manufacturer). However, when Joe updates the information through the Brand Registry, Anna loses her descriptions and her selling power, which hurts her business and the manufacturers.

 

 

The Upsides To The Amazon Brand Registry 

The Brand Registry isn’t all bad, though. Those “downsides” tend to be found only in those overly competitive markets with hundreds of unbridled sellers. In fact, the Amazon Brand Registry can actually be highly beneficial to manufacturers as well as sellers if used properly.

 

The Amazon Brand Registry enables brands to list products without a standard product ID like UPCs or EANs. (Having a unique product UPC can help your Amazon SAO, though.)

 

Through the Brand Registry, the brand’s products can then get a Global Catalog Identifier (GCID). These are permanent product IDs that are 16 alphanumeric characters, recognized internationally for a single product. This GCID not only simplifies your inventory in the short-term, but also it can help you grow to be a globally recognized company—all from the same warehouse and stockroom.

 

The purpose of Amazon’s Brand Registry is to create a cohesive brand. Although, as we mentioned, that can hurt some sellers, that strong, distinct brand image can also boost sales. Having the manufacturer keeping everyone consistent can create a uniform appearance and brand personality; this can then lend itself to a more defined consumer base and strong, loyal following.

 

 

The Brand Registry: In Conclusion 

The Brand Registry seems to be the most beneficial when all parties have a clear understanding of the brand’s mission and purpose.

 

For example, at HomeRev, we work with our sellers individually to ensure they are growing and successful. All of our sellers become a single, unified group: The Revolution. It is through this community of sellers that we can work together to grow the brand personality, gain a following with our consumers, and profit in unanimity. Each and every one of us can own the HomeRev brand.

Home Revolution is brand registered with Amazon. The HomeRev team stays up to date on optimization standards, ensuring our sellers have the most positive selling experience!

 

If you’re interested in joining our Revolution, register here or contact us for more information!

1 Response

Rob Goodwin
Rob Goodwin

April 14, 2017

My brand Cold One has been registered for a couple of years and as the manufacturer of the brand we did gain control of the listings’ textual content.

However, we recently found we do not have total control of images. We have a new distributor in Spain who used some images he created and they replaced my images in the US marketplace. When I contacted Amazon, they informed me the Amazon algorithm for images is to automatically scan all images for a given asin and display the highest resolution regardless of appropriateness or content.

I previously had issues with other listings of our asin displaying a competitor image. Brand registry seemed to resolve the issue, but in hindsight I see we pursued individual images that were incorrect with Amazon Support and they took them down not the Brand Registry.

Amazon suggested we ask resellers to send images to us for approval and posting, however at this moment the images for the listings in seller central do not allow us, the brand registrar to add, remove or edit any of the images Amazon has for the asin.

More work to be done with Support.

Rob Goodwin
Two Cool Inc, mfg
Cold One® Ice Compresson Wraps

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