Unauthorised and non-compliant sellers: the complete workflow

Unauthorised sellers are the most persistent issue in marketplace brand management, and the least understood. Most brands handle them reactively, with angry reports and occasional legal letters, and get nowhere. The brands that succeed treat it as a workflow: continuous monitoring, disciplined evidence, the right route for each situation, and upstream fixes that stop the resupply. One principle holds throughout: Amazon, not the brand, decides whether a violation exists, and only a genuine, evidenced violation should ever be reported.

Step 1: classify before you act

Everything depends on what the seller is actually selling. A counterfeiter selling fakes is an IP case with strong platform remedies. A reseller with genuine stock is not a policy violation at all: it is a distribution question, and reporting it would be both futile and a misuse of Amazon’s tools. Diverted, expired or materially different stock sits between, and is reportable only where it genuinely breaches policy. The workflow starts with a test buy, not a report.

Step 2: monitor continuously

You cannot manage a seller landscape you see monthly. Track every offer on every ASIN: who is selling, at what price, winning what share of the Buy Box, appearing and vanishing on what rhythm. Watch for the patterns that matter: new sellers after a retail promotion (promo buying), sellers with deep catalogues of your category (professional arbitrage), and prices well below your wider channel pricing (a sign of a supply leak somewhere).

Step 3: build evidence like it will be read by a sceptic

Because it will. Test buys with documented unboxing, order IDs, batch codes photographed, condition noted. For suspected fakes, the differences itemised against a genuine control unit. For genuine stock, batch codes are the treasure: with serialisation or good batch records they tell you which distributor’s stock is leaking, which turns a platform question into a commercial conversation with the right partner.

Step 4: use the right route

• Counterfeits: report through Brand Registry with the test-buy evidence, or through Project Zero where Amazon has granted it. Use established escalation routes where a confirmed case recurs.
• Genuine stock, unauthorised reseller: this is not a platform violation, so it is not reported. It is handled upstream through distribution agreements and supply-chain controls, and on the platform by running a stronger authorised offer that competes fairly.
• Condition and safety issues: expired, damaged or repackaged goods breach policy regardless of authenticity; report them as what they are, with photographs.

Step 5: fix the leak

Every persistent unauthorised seller is being resupplied by someone you know. Audit distributor sell-through against their sell-in; review your own wholesale pricing across markets so cross-border arbitrage stops paying; agree marketplace terms in distribution agreements, with competition law advice; and use batch tracing to have specific conversations instead of general suspicions. Reporting without upstream repair is mowing a lawn you keep watering.

Keep score

Report the work like a project: confirmed violations per ASIN, the authorised offer’s Featured Offer share, report accuracy, and time-to-resolution for confirmed counterfeits. The trend tells you whether the work is paying off; the metrics tell the board why it matters.

Go deeper

• Where do grey-market sellers get your stock?
• What is a test buy, and why do brands make them?
• How do Transparency codes stop counterfeits?