There is no doubt that Amazon represents an incredible sales growth opportunity for many brands. After all, Amazon’s mammoth web traffic comprises individuals who have already made a buy decision before landing on the site.

However, Amazon also represents a significant risk to your brand if you do not exert the right level of control over the re-sellers who are offering your product to the consumer.

The vast majority of Amazon resellers exist to make short-term gains and have little or no interest in the longterm success of your brand. In addition, Amazon itself has very little interest in your brand’s longterm health as long as they can source products at very low cost and scrape low percentage returns through volume competition with your brick and mortar distributors.

This is a recipe for disaster as it can quickly lead to a situation where your re-sellers are racing each other to the bottom on price and in the process devaluing your brand and putting your brick and mortar distribution partners out of business. Once they reach the bottom on price and are no longer making money, they will move on to another product leaving you with a boom and bust sales profile as you wait for your product’s listing to recover. If, at this point, Amazon represents your majority sales channel you will experience pain as your sales dry up.

When consumers buy your products on Amazon they are often not aware from whom they are buying. They simply see it as a purchase from Amazon. If your re-sellers do not value your brand’s longevity they will have no incentive to offer the consumer a positive buying experience and negative experiences are attributed to the brand rather than the re-seller. You may only have to scan through the 1-star reviews on your product listings to see that your re-sellers are not even responding to customer problems. Ideally, an invested re-selling partner will have processes in place to catch unhappy customers and rectify the problem before they are driven to write a negative product review. If a negative review is left they should be responding publicly to reduce the impact and demonstrate to other buyers that there is some level of after-sales support.

Finally, if you do not control who is selling your products on Amazon you will struggle to control counterfeit products being sold under your brand. Amazon makes it very easy for anyone to offer for sale a counterfeit product that will directly steal your sales and then damage your brand integrity in the eyes of the consumer as they experience a poor quality product.

Fortunately, placing controls on your Amazon re-sellers is a win-win for everyone as long as you can identify Amazon distribution partners who are interested in longterm relationships with your brand.