Amazon practical traffic increase method 3: "follow sales"
"Follow selling", an Amazon professional marketing term invented by the Chinese, is an ambiguous concept. So much so that almost 100% of sellers have a misunderstanding of this concept. Usually, Chinese sellers understand "follow selling" as no matter what product is selling well on Amazon, sellers will find the same product and sell it together as an offer. Some even directly list it under someone else's Parent Asin ID as a sub-variant and follow it to sell. The consequences of doing so are often tragic. You may make money quickly and have good sales at the beginning, but your account may be blocked overnight, your products may be removed from the shelves, and all goods and payments may be confiscated by Amazon. There are countless examples of such tragedies.
So what caused this result? Was it banned simply because it was selling the same popular product?
To understand this issue, we need to start with Amazon's "Darwin" product competition mechanism. Everyone who works for Amazon knows that Amazon does not allow every seller or supplier to create a details page by themselves, but determines whether to create an additional details page based on the product itself. To put it simply, Amazon does not allow multiple detail pages for the same product. Instead, the same product from different sellers or suppliers shares one detail page. And by calculating and sorting the seller's or supplier's Buy Box according to the product data, it displays product sales opportunities to customers.
One of the purposes of doing this is to ensure that there are not a large number of duplicate products and pages on the website. What is more important is to create healthy competition between different sellers and suppliers of the same product, and to encourage other suppliers to continuously improve the quality of product information by giving high-quality product information more display opportunities. This will ensure that "good money drives out bad money", allowing good sellers or suppliers to sell better, while sellers or suppliers who do not abide by the rules will have the motivation to improve product information or be eliminated.
After understanding this "Darwin" logic, sellers will find that it is this Darwin system that is conducive to improving the quality of product information that objectively creates a situation where multiple sellers or suppliers make offers in parallel. This is the surface phenomenon of the so-called "follow-selling". However, why would a "follow-selling" system dedicated to improving and enhancing information quality lead to the consequences of store closures, product deductions, and payment deductions?
There is actually a very big misunderstanding here. The parallel offer itself does not bring any bad results, but the violation of US intellectual property rights and related laws brings about the bad consequences just mentioned! ! !
The Product Darwin System itself is just a platform that provides opportunities for parallel offers, and Chinese people often have no bottom line when uploading parallel offers.
When you see something selling well at other stores, just copy it and make an identical one and put it up for sale. What’s the difference between selling counterfeit brands? ! ! To put it more clearly, parallel offers are not necessarily bad, but if you infringe on someone else’s brand and patents, you will definitely be punished by Amazon or even have your store closed! ! ! Sellers here divide the consequences of "following sales" into three situations to make it clearer:
If the product you "follow-sell" (sellers have always been reluctant to accept the term "follow-sell" because it is a vague and unclear concept, and sellers would rather say "parallel offer") does not have an internationally recognized brand or trademark registered, and has not applied for any design, function, etc. patents recognized by the United States and Amazon. Then, there is absolutely no problem for you to make a parallel offer, and it will not result in any penalty! ! !
If the product you are "copy-selling" has applied for an internationally recognized brand or trademark, and your parallel offer happens to infringe on the brand of the main product, then the owner of the main product can conduct a test purchase or directly resort to legal means to delete your listing at the very least, or even close your store, seal your goods, and deduct your payment at the worst. Of course, in many cases, brand owners generally will not fight with small sellers, but at this time your life and death is in the hands of others. In addition, Amazon will regularly update its brand library and regularly remove and punish listings that infringe on other people’s brands. In this case, others also control your life and death.
If the product you "follow sells" has an internationally recognized brand, trademark, and also has various patents for the product, then the owner of the main product can directly use legal means to close your store, seize your goods, take your money, and even bankrupt your company!
At this point, sellers should understand that it is not "follow selling" (parallel offers) that will cause any trouble, but the violation of intellectual property laws and related laws will cause you huge losses!
So if small sellers want to follow other sellers’ sales, how do you formulate your strategy ? A big principle is to make sure what you do is not illegal!
Before making a parallel offer, check whether the trademark and brand of the product you want to sell infringes on the brand and trademark of others. If not, you can “follow the sale”.
Before making a parallel offer, check whether the product you want to sell infringes on the patents of other products. If not, you can sell it.
Many people would say that copy-selling is meant to skirt the rules and make quick money, so if you do it in a formal way, it would be very slow. If you think so, the seller will advise you again that you cannot do business on Amazon with the mindset of Chinese e-commerce. Marketing on Amazon is very weak. Products, brands and services are the core of doing well on Amazon. This is the experience summed up by many people after dying on the beach: no zuo no die. If you are determined to zuo, you will definitely die.
However, if you insist on taking a different approach, then choose to "follow and sell" products with less brand influence, fewer patents and which are relatively popular. This will only reduce your chances of dying and make you fail more slowly. But no one can guarantee that you won’t place 100 orders today and your store will be closed tomorrow!
The seller must state that the seller does not advocate or encourage anyone who sees this article to engage in activities that infringe on other people's brands and intellectual products! Sellers have always advocated treating Amazon sales as a formal business, operating it well, making good products, building a good brand, and providing good services.
The sellers just talked about “how” to follow others from the perspective of “following” others. So how can sellers prevent being followed from the perspective of being followed?
To register a brand recognized by GOME, it is best to register directly in the United States or register a trademark under the Madrid System. As we all know, Amazon has a brand protection function. After you have a brand recognized by the United States, you must apply for Amazon's brand protection. If someone maliciously "follows your sales" after you have registered for brand protection, you can collect evidence of the infringement through a "test buy" and then file a complaint with Amazon to protect your brand. Products that are maliciously "followed" will be deleted or the store will be closed.
The most thorough way to prevent malicious "copycat sales" is to apply for corresponding intellectual property protection, that is, patents, during the product research and development stage. Whether it is your product's appearance design or other unique function patents, it is best to complete the international or US patent application before the product is officially launched on the market (of course, this depends on your target market. International patents are protected by each recognizing country, and patents in a specific market are protected by that country). If you own certain patents for a product, when you find a malicious "copy-selling" seller, you can directly notify Amazon and the infringing seller in the form of a lawyer's letter through your attorney, requesting Amazon to delete the infringing products. In serious cases, you can even request to close the infringing seller's store. For infringing sellers, you can ask them to stop the infringement and delete the products. If their infringement is very serious, you can even take legal action and bring them to court. This is the fundamental way to prevent you from being maliciously "followed" from the entry point. Almost 100% of domestic sellers have no awareness of intellectual property rights, especially the awareness of using patents to protect their products and even business models. In fact, in foreign countries, this is just basic business common sense and one of the most basic tasks of a business. In fact, applying for an international patent is not that difficult. Some cities that encourage knowledge innovation even provide high subsidies. As far as the seller knows, the lowest fee for registering an international patent in Guangdong Province is about 5,000 yuan. If an international patent is registered, the relevant departments of Guangdong Province will reward the enterprise with about 7,000 yuan. Not only can you protect your own products and business models, but you can also accumulate the company's technical strength and make a little money at the same time. Why not do it? ! Let me say a few more words here. The Chinese are used to only seeing "quick money" and selling whatever sells well. They are also used to having no awareness of intellectual property rights and will just stock whatever goods are available. What the seller wants to say is that if you do business on Amazon by selling "counterfeit products" and distributing them in large quantities, you have no future and will only end up dead. As I said, the core idea of Amazon is very simple, just these six words: "product, brand, service".
Find some more distinctive products or more universal products. The so-called distinctive products may be products other than mass-produced fast-moving consumer goods. For example, sellers know that some semi-industrial categories sell very well on Amazon, such as 3D printers; there are also some more peculiar products, such as Lao Gan Ma, duck necks, etc. Or you can find some more common products to sell, which usually do not have such strong brand characteristics, such as tableware, etc., so the chance of infringement is relatively low. These products may seem "unpopular", but they often sell very well. People who can do business well are those who are good at using their brains and discovering areas that others have not discovered. Don’t just wait to die in the "red ocean". Use your brain and maybe you can discover your own "blue ocean".
