Amazon scrapped over 3 million fake products, 4 billion bad listings in 2021
After being under immense pressure to tackle counterfeit products, Amazon identified, seized and disposed of over three million such products in 2021 and prevented four billion bad listings on the site, the company said in its Brand Protection Report.
In 2020, Amazon had barred 10 billion listings and got rid of two million counterfeit products. The Seattle-based company also witnessed a fall in complaints of intellectual property infringement in 2021 even as it grew the number of active brands on its site.
Last year, the e-commerce giant had invested over $900 million and employed more than 12,000 people, including software developers, expert investigators and machine learning scientists, to tackle counterfeit, fraud, and other forms of abuse on the platform.
During the year, Amazon tackled counterfeits that were sent to its fulfilment centres. It also worked with brands and law enforcement authorities to track counterfeiters’ warehouses and facilities and shut them down.
“Our team continues to innovate to stay ahead of bad actors while working in partnership with rights owners, law enforcement, and other experts to ensure customers can continue to shop with confidence,” Business Line quoted Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President of Amazon’s Selling Partner Services, as saying.
According to the Brand Protection Report, Amazon prevented over 2.5 million attempts to create fake accounts on the site’s third-party marketplace. This is where sellers list their products directly for consumers. The number of attempts prevented in 2021 is 58 percent lesser than the attempts Amazon stopped in 2020, which the company says happened due to its vetting process and other efforts to deter bad actors.
However, Juozas Kaziukėnas, the Founder of e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse, told Associated Press that it was hard to independently pinpoint whether it was Amazon’s policies or other factors that caused the decline.
Not just Amazon, other e-commerce retailers such as eBay have been plagued by counterfeit sellers for a long time. Amazon has taken steps in recent years to counter counterfeit products amid pressure from brands and lawmakers.
