EP #292] [ENG] - How to navigate Amazon Brand Registry - Jonathan Lee

EP #292] [ENG] - How to navigate Amazon Brand Registry - Jonathan Lee Speaker 2: Welcome to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. This is the place for everything related to Amazon private label and e-commerce. Learn exactly what you need to start or scale your business. Get insights from the top industry experts who will discuss the latest trends and best practices in the world of Amazon. From choosing products and sourcing from a supplier to setting up your Amazon account and marketing your business, you will hear it here. Let's get started. Here is your host, Vincenzo Toscano. Speaker 3: Hello, guys. Welcome to another episode of The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy, the place where I relate to Amazon FBA product level and e-commerce. My name is Vincenzo Toscano, founder and CEO of Ecomcy, and today we bring another special guest. His name is Jonathan Lee, and he's the founder and CEO of AC Helper, where they specialize on everything that has to do with solving your problems and navigating your journey in the Amazon space. That's why I wanted to bring Jonathan today. I actually met him through a couple of trips. First, I believe it was an event in the Philippines with Amazon, then a second event in Singapore, I think even Vietnam. So we've definitely been spending a couple of, you know, time together. And the reason why I wanted to bring Jonathan to them It's because after, you know, seeing what has been going on in the space, there's definitely a lot of a situation that people are struggling when it comes to brand registry, dealing with patents, troubleshooting. And hopefully today we can, you know, discuss some of those things and give you some guidance in terms of how you can navigate it. So, Jonathan, pleasure to have you today on the show. How are you doing? Good. Speaker 1: Thank you, Vincenzo. It's nice to be on the show, man. Thank you. We're a new startup. We're AZ Helper, just to help Amazon sellers, you know, because we're a seller ourselves. And we started a few years ago, and it was because of Amazon brand registry issues. It was at that time, it was a global issue. And China already had their solutions. And in Taiwan, they wanted to find local solutions of a is there any service provider or sellers can solve Amazon brand registry, because Amazon has been like removing it. Yeah, rejection and keeps rejecting. And then one of the Amazon employees found us. And I was like, hey, Jonathan, can you do this? And I was like, yeah, my lawyer in the U.S. can do it. So then we worked together and became AZ Helper. And currently, we help over a thousand people, a thousand brands in Taiwan and other countries. Many are in Taiwan. A thousand brands and getting Amazon Brand Registry approved and our success rate is 100%. So it's like we go through the process one by one and then go see the files that they prepare and then guide them through one-on-one online through Google Meet or Teams if they have it. Speaker 3: That's great. I think that's such a nice initiative because I agree, you know, brand registry and things that have to do with troubleshooting Amazon is such a headache. And on top of that, a lot of people don't know how to do it. So, you know, having the opportunity of dealing with experts like yourself is like definitely such an added value because we all know like having an account suspended or not having protection on a brand is one of the worst things you can experience. So it's definitely another bonus. Now tell us a little bit, you know, let's start I guess with the brand registry because I feel the brand registry people do a lot of mistakes when it comes to that. Like what are some of the latest things you're seeing when it comes to brand registry? One of the biggest mistakes or issues people are encountering, if you can mention some. Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, for sure. Before that, I would like to say that is that Amazon Brand Registry, we do it for free. We have SOPs. It's all for free. It's all for free. So all of the 1000 brands that we help, We did it for free. Speaker 3: Wow. I think now everybody listening to this episode, they're going to all reach out to you. Speaker 1: Because it's not, it's just paperwork for Amazon. You need to prove that you own the trademark or you have authorization from a brand owner. It's like you can use this brand and So most of the time, there's four to five issues that commonly will make mistakes. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 1: The trademark, if it's not yours, you enroll it, you're going to get rejected for sure. If it's someone else's, you need a brand authorization letter. We call it LOA, letter of authorization. We also have a template for that. And you just need to have both parties sign it and then submit to Amazon and all of the other processes. The other thing is the images that you provide to Amazon may, it cannot be, what I say, it cannot be Photoshop or crop. It has to be real life image or product packaging with your logo on it. And if you don't, Amazon will just reject you. The third thing is, The invoices and manufacturer agreements. So sometimes like it's not clear or it's too blurry. They will also reject it. If there's one little thing that they see is not okay, the Amazon employees that is vetting it, the Amazon brand registry enrollment, they will just reject it automatically. And if you get rejected too many times, They would think that, okay, your account is kind of fishy. We're not going to give you Amazon Brand Registry anymore. And you cannot even log in or enroll it. But your seller account is so active. It's that brand registry, you cannot go in. So do not keep submitting. You have to read and double check all of the paperwork and information that you need to provide. The last thing, is your account has to be fully active. Especially new sellers, they forgot to put in payment, which is, for example, maybe World First or Payoneer account information, your bank account into Amazon. That's one thing. Another is tax information and business information. You're not fully active. If your account is not fully active for over 48 hours, During the brand registry enrollment after you submit, they would think that your account is inactive or there's some kind of issues and they will also use that to reject your account. Yeah. So, yeah. Speaker 3: Cool. I want to tap very quickly on the first one, the images. A lot of people do that, which is a huge mistake. They use Photoshop and all of that. Like people don't understand that Amazon has technology actually to now identify that. And if I'm not mistaken, that's one of the worst kind of things to do because if you start falsifying documentation, I think once you get suspended, they snuck them back, right? Speaker 1: No, you would need to make another account entity and stuff like that. It's like you're lying to Amazon and if you're using Photoshop, that's just fake. So they would just reject you and then It's in the system. So if you apply again, they will know like, okay, this, this person got rejected because they use a Photoshop photo. And if you do it a second time and third time, you might not be able to apply for the fourth time or the next time you do it. Speaker 3: Yeah, true, true. Now, when it comes to the brand raising process, like, So another thing that I hear that is a big issue is sometimes when you're doing the application and even if you're submitting all the documentation correctly, you know, sometimes people might still encounter issues like, you know, depending on where your trademark is being registered or Amazon not recognizing that kind of application number. Is that something that still happens nowadays, like still having issues to recognize certain trademarks depending on the country or is it becoming more streamlined when it comes to that? Speaker 1: Um, as long as your trademark is filed legally, there's no issues with a lawyer. Like there was blacklist lawyer list. Speaker 3: Yeah. That's what I'm going to mention. There was a blacklist and something like that. Yeah. Speaker 1: If your lawyer was those blacklisted, um, no matter how many times you submit, it's not going to work. You need to file a brand new trademark. In that country with a good lawyer, like that doesn't, it's not on that blacklist and you would be able to succeed 100%. Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah, nice. Another thing as well I want to bring to the table is When it comes to doing all this application or trademark and everything with Amazon, is there any specific kind of specific time throughout the journey that people should do it? Because some people might create first those listings and once they have the listings fully created, then they do the brand registry. But then, you know, it can create issues to link the brand with the listings. It's a huge headache. So what is your recommendation like when it comes to that? Speaker 1: Please do not do that. Yeah, the thing is, in short is Seller Central and Brand Registry, they are two different departments. Speaker 3: And. Speaker 1: Amazon is a big company. So if you want two different departments to link together is going to be very hard. And I had so many like brand owners, they came to me, hey, I list the products through 5565 error code and go in and list the products under the brand name, not generic, under brand name without brand registry. And over time, they want to enroll brand registry and then want to connect to the account. It took over six months to connect. And there's many issues, which is one, the brand store link. When you click on a brand store, it might not, there's no brand store. The other thing is not every SKU, every ASIN in your account is connected, which means that Some of the ASINs might have A plus content. Some of them they might not. And you would need to file another multiple cases with Amazon just to get that open and linked to tell Amazon, hey, we have brand registry. Please link it to this ASIN and this ASIN. And sometimes if you give them five to 10 or 10 or more ASINs, they might only do a few. Speaker 3: Well, I know it's a huge headache. Yeah, because the thing is, people think because I'm sure you hear this all the time. People say, no, I'm just going to do my listing, start selling. And then down the line when I have more money or I can't, I'm just going to do the adding the brand, but it's so difficult to then add a brand afterwards or even change the brand altogether. That's another thing that I wanted to ask. Speaker 1: Oh man, that's another thing. Speaker 3: Like people, let's say they have a brand name and they want to change their brand, like it's pretty much impossible, right? Speaker 1: Right now, Amazon cannot do it. Even Amazon internally, even Amazon employees with higher level, they cannot do it. It's not possible anymore. Previously, a few years ago, you can use full update or even opening cases, seller support. They can help you with that. But right now, it's not possible. Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Now, another thing I wanted to bring to the table is When it comes to brand registry, I know issues I see sometimes people struggling with is how to use it correctly to defend themselves against copycats and things like that. I see all the time, for example, people trying to use brand registry to take all their listings down because they're copying their branding, their images and things like that. But let's be honest, sometimes brand raising is very slow when it comes to like, they don't sometimes properly take action on taking, you know, or listings and, you know, protecting your brand. So is there any recommendation when it comes to escalating this? Because given that it's different teams than the actual seller central team, sometimes communication is very slow and all of that. So, and I guess that's why people sometimes And I want to get to you because it's very frustrating. So what is your recommendation to streamline this as fast as possible? Speaker 1: So that's why we also give out free SOP for that. So it's very easy. As long as you have brand registry and you have trademark in Amazon brand registry and you can prove that they If you did a trademark infringement or patent infringement or copyright infringement, then you would be able to use Amazon's Brand Registry's tool, report tool, which is called Report a Violation, short for RAV. You file it and normally, Within 48 hours, as long as your case is strong and they accept it, the people that are infringing on your product or on your brand, it's going to be gone within 48 hours. If not, there's another escalation button in Amazon Brand Registry and you can escalate the case and continue to escalate with Amazon. But it will take a little bit longer if you do that way. Unknown Speaker: Okay, it should be good. Speaker 3: Cool, cool. Nice. Now, another thing I want to bring to the table is patents. Okay, because right now we've been talking mainly about trademarks. And protection on the brand side of things, but patents are a big issue. Sometimes, especially Amazon sellers tend to usually go for what we call design patents, right? Because they're cheaper, easier to get. But at the same time, I have seen that it doesn't grant you as much protection as what we call utility patent. So is that something you're also seeing in the Amazon space? Like it's getting more and more difficult to really enforce what we can call design patents. What has been your experience so far? Speaker 1: Just being very clear, you know, like if you have design patent, a lot of people will just report. I've seen many cases report and Amazon will accept it. First, accept it and then you would need to dispute it. Appeal with Amazon. Hey, this is not something. But Amazon, in Amazon's case, if someone reports someone using a design patent or a utility patent, Amazon will Deactivate that listing and you guys need to appeal. There's no way Amazon's going to vet it. They will only vet it after you appeal and they will take it more seriously. So it's kind of a bad flaw in that sense but it's also a protection for people that really have a utility patent or design patent and enforce it. Because if they misuse this violation tool, Amazon will also remove, revoke their brand registry. Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. That's the other thing, like people have used it sometimes to only do black hat techniques, like taking people down and everything. So you have to be very mindful of that, 100%. Now, another thing I want to mention is what is usually the methodology you would recommend for a client if, let's say, they're doing what you're saying, like they're appealing, to Amazon but it keeps getting rejected and you know for a fact that person is infringing on the patent and sometimes it could be only the people on the other side which it can happen. They just don't understand how to read your patent or just it's not able to make any sense to take their listing down. Is there any other legal channels with Amazon to escalate it if the appeal process doesn't work or it always has to go through that process to keep appealing a patent infringement? Speaker 1: So as long as your case is strong enough, then it should be appealed. But there is one case that it took months and the client didn't want to waste too much time. And we just hired a lawyer and submit a formal document, legal document to Amazon and Amazon will also accept that. And it was done. But the client has to spend money. But if you do it with Amazon report a violation, you don't need money. You don't need to spend your time. Speaker 3: Yes. Cool. Cool. Now, I guess out of curiosity, what other issues are you seeing when it comes to brand resiliency and patents? Is there anything that has been hitting your desk lately the most in terms of issues, troubleshooting? Just trying to understand what other, you know, lessons we can get from you out of today. Like any other things you would like to share in terms of, you know, be careful with this, avoid this. What other things you have right now that you can share? Speaker 1: So avoid Infringing on any kind of trademark or patents. Trademarks is easy. Like you cannot put in Nike in your bullet points or in title SEO. You cannot put that. You cannot put trademark names in it. But patent is very hard to see, right? So you can make use of many tools that is free, such as Wipo or even Google Patents. Just put in the word search mark. If you have a list of your product or a description of your product, you'll be able to generate, oh, how many, what kind of patents is already registered in the database. And before you sell, don't do it. And if you really are selling and it's, you're infringing, then hurry and deactivate your listing. Up that trademark or patent will not report you, you know. Speaker 3: Yes, cool. Awesome. And another thing I wanted to mention as well, when it comes to a trademark, and I just want to briefly bring to a table, you know, emerging markets, especially in Asia, right? Because I know a lot of people have been talking about moving to those markets that are just getting started. How does it work from a trademark perspective and brand? If I have a brand in the USA and I want to expand to, you know, Amazon, let's say Amazon Philippines is going to get started in Vietnam and then we have Japan, Australia. Is that all global protection or I need to do the application every single time? Because I know I get that question a lot as well. Speaker 1: So Amazon's brand registry is globally. So as long as If you have one trademark, for example, in the US and you want to sell to Japan, Australia or other countries, Singapore, you can authorize Amazon US to sell it into other accounts. But that is only temporary. You only have brand benefits in Amazon, but you don't have legal benefit and protection if there is infringements that is being made because trademarks and patents are localized. So if you want to do it in long term, normally, I recommend people like if you want to do it, just do if you just want to test the waters, you know, Japan market or Australian market Singapore, maybe Philippine market. You can use authorization first. And if you do so well, hurry and apply for that trademark or patent because there's always cockroaches that they will file that trademark in that country. And when you are going to file a trademark in that country, it's like, hey, there's this person filing a trademark under my name already registered. And then they That's going to be complicated. You either buy it or you either get reported by them. And that's happening a lot. Especially if they go to using UK or Australia or Europe marketplace. A lot of people see that US brand is really good. I want to apply here in these countries. Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I know. And I know when it comes to, and then we can use this point to start concluding, when it comes to getting access to brand registry, there's sometimes certain tricks because There are some countries that will give you a faster trademark, like for example, the UK is very fast compared to other countries. So is that something you also recommend? Speaker 1: Yeah, if you want it quick, UK four months, within four months, European Union, we just had a client within four months. So I was like, very happy. We're all happy. And like, once you have a registered trademark, you can then apply for transparency program, which will cover all of the all of all Amazon platforms and marketplaces. And if Anyone wants to sell that product, they need to have that unique QR code of transparency code on that product. Or if they don't, they cannot sell or resell it. Speaker 3: Yeah. Awesome. That's great, Jonathan. So, I mean, thank you so much. I guess before we end, is there any last piece of advice or tip you want to share? Speaker 1: Last piece of advice, I would say hurry and do Amazon. And when you do Amazon, sell on Amazon, file a trademark. It's not that much money. It's a one-time thing. Awesome. Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Jonathan. For people who want to reach out to you and work with you on all these things, like how people can find you? Speaker 1: This is my azhelper.com and yeah. Speaker 3: Awesome. Straightforward. Speaker 1: Remember it's free. It's free. Speaker 3: Yeah. That means the opportunity. Awesome. Awesome. So thank you so much, Jonathan. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate your knowledge and definitely let's keep in touch and looking forward to see you at upcoming events. Okay. Speaker 1: Yeah. See you soon. Speaker 3: Thank you. Unknown Speaker: Thank you. Speaker 3: Bye. Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to The Ecommerce Lab By Ecomcy. 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