Amazon is battling counterfeiters with hefty fees and plenty of paperwork

Amazon is tired of sellers hawking counterfeit goods on its ecommerce platform, and it’s now taking action to keep them off the site entirely.

CNBC reports that the company has begun implementing stringent conditions for merchants who want to sell popular brands, such as one-time non-refundable fees of about $1,000-$1,500 per label and invoices from manufacturers or distributors that show the purchase of 30 items within the last 90 days.

A spokesman told CNBC:

We want customers to be able to shop with confidence on Amazon. For certain products and categories, Amazon requires additional performance checks, other qualification requirements, and fees.

While the move might help reduce the chances of customers purchasing fake goods from the site, sellers are none too happy about these changes, which they feel hurt their bottom line and make it exceedingly difficult to do business with Amazon.

It’s also possible that this will result in smaller selections of products and prices for customers. The high fees and documentation requirements could discourage smaller merchants, especially those that do less than $1 million in sales through Amazon.

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Ultimately, it does mean that you’ll have less reason to worry about the products you shop for on the site. For sellers, there’s not much that can be done except wait for Amazon to come up with a better way to detect and block counterfeiters.

Via Engadget