Is Amazon’s Project Zero Enough To Quell Counterfeiting Fears?
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.
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.