It may seem counterintuitive, but some sellers are listing unbranded products on Amazon, which the marketplace allows them to do by entering “Generic” as the brand. Not only is it allowed, but Amazon is helping such sellers with a new policy change.
On Friday, Amazon announced it’s offering those sellers control over their generic listing product detail pages. “Generic products are unbranded products that don’t belong to any identifiable brand,” it explained:
“If you create a new product listing with the brand name “Generic”, or its local translation, you’ll have exclusive control over any edits made to the product detail page, per our listings policy.
“In certain cases, you may not be able to edit or make changes to existing generic listing product detail page, or copy the product to a different store.
“If you try to edit or add offers on another seller’s generic product, you’ll receive an error message in feeds or in the one-to-one listing process. You will then be guided to create a new product in the Add a Product tool.”
Here’s a page of generic apparel listings in the Amazon Fashion category that includes coats, ties, dresses, earrings, Tshirts, and baseball caps.
Amazon explains the circumstances under which sellers may list products under the “Generic” brand in the following Amazon Seller University video at minute 8:26 – though the full video is worth watching as it explains the differences between registered brands, unregistered brands, and generic brands. (It starts off with a reminder that sellers may either resell items they’ve sourced or sell items they own – as the original manufacturer or supplier of the product.)
The video explains that in order to list generic brands, there can be no brand name or logo on the product or the packaging.
Sellers commenting on the announcement feared some would abuse the policy. “The main issue we are seeing is sellers, in order to have a monopoly on a listing, simply list their BRANDED products as generic,” a seller wrote in part.
Another feared it would create confusion with “5 pages of (identical) products for the customers.”
The announcement included a link to the Amazon Generic Product policy.
Oh goodie! Just more of what we need on Amazon: Generic products. Take my wallet, please!
Amazon historically does nothing, enforces nothing on a consistent basis. That means that this will be abused heavily because sellers know this is something they have to make effort to catch and enforce. They have very little control over the catalog as it is. Asin hijacking, review manipulation, listing hijacking… amazon put giant policies in place to fix all of them and fixed nothing because they do not care. The product still sells regardless of who the seller is