Amazon’s market share in the U.S. stands at a staggering 37.6%, making it the best place to build a brand and sell your products online. However, the benefits of selling on Amazon come with risks that require you to take measures to protect your brand. What are these measures, you ask? Registering your brand on Amazon Brand Registry. Brand registry on Amazon helps you protect your brand and enjoy additional features that allow you to sell better on Amazon. In this guide, we’ll dive into the world of brand registration on Amazon, how to register, Amazon brand registry benefits, and the best practices to make the most of Amazon brand ownership.
What is Amazon Brand Registry?
Amazon Brand Registry is a free program by Amazon designed to help brand owners protect their intellectual property, create trust, and grow their business on Amazon. This service offers tools and support to maintain control over your brand presence on the platform, giving prospective buyers the confidence that they are shopping for authentic goods. It also lets you manage your product listings without interference and hijackings from unauthorized resellers and enables you to present your brand accurately and consistently.
What are the Requirements for Brand Registration on Amazon?
Amazon has some requirements you must meet before brand registration. Here are the Amazon Brand Registry requirements:
- An active Vendor Central or Seller Central account. Vendors must provide their vendor code.
- A trademark, pending or registered in the country of enrollment, and the trademark registration number.
- A list of ASINs to show the products you sell under your brand on Amazon.
- At least one photo of your product and packaging showcasing your brand name and logo. The images have to be actual photos of the products, not mockups.
- A list of the countries where you sell your brand’s products.
How to Prepare Your Brand for Amazon Brand Registration
Before you hit the ‘Submit’ button on your Amazon Brand Registry application, you should take several crucial steps to ensure a seamless registration.
Trademark Registration
Trade registration is the first step to becoming eligible for the Amazon Brand Registry. It’s impossible to get accepted into the Amazon Brand Registry without a trademark. You need to make your brand official by initiating trademark registration with a government trademark office. This Amazon Brand Registry trademark requirement acts as proof of your brand ownership and helps you protect it from potential infringements.
Your trademark must match your brand logo and name, but before applying for a trademark, ensure no other trademarks are registered under your brand’s name. The USPTO website lets you search their database to find if there are any other trademarks under your brand name.
You should also consider the class of your trademark, which will determine the type of products you can sell under your trademarked brand. And lastly, it’s always wise to involve a trademark lawyer to help you navigate the nuances of trademark filing and ensure you do it right.
Creating a Unique Brand Logo and Images
A solid visual identity is crucial to creating a brand and standing out. Amazon Brand Services requires a unique logo to set your brand apart in the marketplace. Besides being a requirement for the Amazon Brand Registry program, brand logos and imagery are the primary triggers for recognition and engagement in the shopper’s mind.
Obtaining UPC or EAN Codes
Universal Product Codes (UPC) or European Article Numbers (EAN) are unique identifiers for products sold commercially. These codes are crucial for tracking and selling merchandise within global retail supply chains.
UPC and EAN codes are one of Amazon’s Brand Registry requirements. Brands looking to enroll in Amazon Brand Registry services must secure UPC or EAN codes for each product listing. These codes help streamline the listing and inventory process on Amazon and play a significant role in protecting your brand’s integrity on the platform. By assigning a unique code to each product, you reinforce your brand’s credibility and significantly minimize the risk of counterfeit or duplicate listings under your brand name.
So, how do you acquire UPC or EAN codes?
You buy UPC or EAN codes from a Global Standards 1 (GS1) authorized body to ensure that each code you obtain is globally unique and verifiable. If you have variations of the same product, you will need multiple codes for the different variations.
Gathering Necessary Brand Registration Documentation and Information
Gathering all necessary documentation and information beforehand is critical to streamline your enrollment process in the Amazon Brand Registry. You must prepare a comprehensive packet of your brand’s legal and identification documents that Amazon requires to verify your brand when registering for the Brand Registry.
Start with your trademark certificate. It’ll serve as the core proof of your brand’s registered status. Equally important are your brand logo files, high-resolution images of your products, and a list of the categories under which your items fall.
Additionally, you’ll need details about the countries where your brand’s products are manufactured and distributed. Amazon also asks for contact information for someone within your company who can verify the details of your Amazon Brand Registry application, ensuring there’s a direct line of communication for any queries or confirmation requests. If your brand has an online presence outside Amazon, you should have links to your official website and active socials. These may come in handy if Amazon needs to authenticate your brand further.
Collecting and organizing these pieces of information and documents before applying speeds up the brand registry application process and minimizes the back-and-forth often associated with missing or incomplete information.
Step-by-Step Guide to Registering Your Brand on Amazon Brand Registry
With all the requirements met, let’s now walk through the Amazon Brand Registry application process.
Step 1: Signing up
Go to the Amazon Registry page and fill in your credentials to sign up. If you already have a seller account, you can scroll down and click the Sign in button, then proceed to log in with your seller account details. Once you’re signed into your account, select Enroll a brand.
Step 2: Fill in Your Brand Information
Once you select Enroll a Brand, you’ll be taken to a page with two options. The first option is to enroll your brand if you have a pending or registered trademark. The second option to get started with Amazon IP Accelerator. This applies to brands that don’t have a pending or registered trademark.
Let’s break down Amazon IP accelerator for a bit.
Amazon Intellectual Property (IP) Accelerator is Amazon’s program that aims to help brands acquire trademarks faster and get accepted to the Amazon Brand Registry. According to Amazon, the program helps… “Sidestep trademark registration pitfalls by accessing our network of trusted IP law firms and get high-quality services at competitive rates.” The Amazon IP Accelerator program costs $950 and takes about 2-3 weeks to get your trademark.
Now, let us get back to the Amazon Brand Registry sign-up process:
If you already have a pending or registered trademark, you’ll be taken to a page with fields where you’ll be required to fill in your brand information. Enter your registered brand name, select the trademark office, and then enter your trademark registration number.
Step 3: Fill in Your Product Information
Below are the brand information fields where you’ll need to fill in your product information. Enter 1-3 product ASINs that represent your brand, and ensure the name on your application matches the name on the ASINs.
If your brand has an online presence outside Amazon, enter the URL to your brand’s official website to help Amazon Brand Registry authenticate your brand. This field is optional, so you can skip it if your brand doesn’t have an online presence outside of Amazon. Next, if you sell on other e-commerce platforms, enter these platforms’ URLs in the optional field. Finally, upload at least one high-quality product image showing your logo and brand name, then hit Next.
Step 4: Seller/Vendor Verification
Confirm whether you’re a seller, vendor, or both, and be prepared to verify your brand control. Select the Amazon product categories you intend to sell under and provide documentation and the countries of your brand’s manufacturing and distribution.
Step 4: Review and Submit
Review all your Amazon Brand Registry application information carefully before submission. So, how long does Amazon Brand Registry take to review your application? Typically, the review process takes a few weeks. However, it might take longer if Amazon needs to verify additional details.
Benefits of Joining Amazon Brand Registry
Registering your brand on the Amazon Brand Registry has many benefits. Let’s break them down.
A+ Content
Joining Amazon Brand Services lets you enhance your product listings with A+ content. With Amazon A+ Content, you can utilize rich text descriptions, high-quality images, and videos to enrich your listing and tell your brand story more compellingly. The result? Increased traffic, improved conversion rates, and more sales. A+ content is crucial in helping your brand stand out in a competitive marketplace.
Enhanced Brand Content and Control
If you like having more control over your listings, you’ll find the Amazon registry valuable. Brand Registry gives you unprecedented control over your product detail pages. This enhanced authority lets you curate the content displayed, from textual descriptions to multi-media elements. Your edits on the product details pages will also get prioritized over any other seller’s, and you can make the edits without undue delay or restriction. You can leverage this brand content authority to combat misinformation and avoid listing hijacking by third-party sellers.
Amazon Stores
Amazon Storefront is another tool that lets registered brands tell their brand story. This feature, exclusive to brands in the Brand Registry, presents a unique opportunity for brands to establish their own curated digital storefront within Amazon. Think of it as your personalized mini website showcasing your brand’s product range on Amazon without distractions from competitors’ products. You can design and customize your storefront with your choice of layout, content, and colors to reflect your brand identity.
The Amazon Storefront feature benefits your brand by enhancing brand visibility and differentiation. Your customers have a dedicated place to learn about your brand and explore your products. This level of personalization improves your customers’ shopping experience, potentially increasing conversion rates and customer loyalty. You also get detailed analytics on traffic, customer behavior, and preferences, which helps you make data-driven decisions when adjusting your storefront and brand messaging.
Amazon Brand Story
Amazon Brand Story is a continuous carousel just above the A+ content. This feature is available to brands registered in the Amazon Brand Registry. It enables brands to go beyond selling stories by letting them tell their brand story and sell a brand experience.
This story-telling aspect allows you to deepen your connection with customers by sharing your brand’s origins, values, missions, and the people behind the brand. It also helps your product details page stand out, elevating your brand’s perception and fostering a loyal customer base.
Sponsored Brand Advertising
Amazon Brand Registry enabled brands to enhance their visibility and connect with potential customers through Sponsored Brand Advertising. Sponsored Brand Advertising is a form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising that allows you to feature your logo, a custom headline, and multiple products in ads that appear in prominent locations on Amazon’s search results pages.
The strategic placement of these ads can significantly increase your brand’s presence on the platform. It makes it easier for shoppers to discover and engage with your products and drives higher traffic to your product listings or Amazon Storefront.
As a result, you can potentially attract new customers, increase sales opportunities, and scale your brand on Amazon. Additionally, this advertising model offers valuable insights through detailed performance metrics. This allows you to make data-driven decisions about adjusting your ad creative and budget for better performance.
Manage Your Customer Engagement
Brands enrolled with Amazon Brand Services can access Amazon’s Manage Your Customer Engagement tool. This tool empowers you to drive revenue for your brand by utilizing email marketing. This tool works like any email marketing tool — allowing you to nurture customer relationships and increase engagements by scheduling and sending image-based, product-centered emails to your customers. Leveraging these customer engagement emails helps you market directly to customers who follow your brand, giving you the perfect medium to increase visibility for new products and build brand loyalty.
Virtual Bundles
Shoppers love a good deal, and product bundling lets you give your customers a good deal while increasing order value. Amazon Brand Registry allows registered brands to bundle products with the Amazon Virtual Product Bundle Program. Brands can offer complementary products as a package deal to Amazon shoppers without having to physically package them together before the sale.
If you’re brand-registered, you can utilize virtual bundling to sell multiple products to shoppers with one click. This enhances customers’ shopping experience by offering them value for money and complementary product combinations under one listing.
To set up a virtual bundle, select complementary products from your catalog. Amazon allows you to bundle 2-5 products. You may need to do some research to find the best product combination. Once you have the product combination, create a bundle listing with a unique SKU on Seller Central. Finally, set a bundled price that offers value over purchasing the items separately.
Brand Analytics
Making data-driven decisions is a vital part of growing your business, and Amazon ensures brands registered with Brand Registry get all the relevant data via Brand Analytics. Amazon compares Brand Analytics to… a crystal ball that could answer questions like:
- Am I using the best keywords to connect with customers?
- How often are customers buying my products?
- What other products do customers buy when they buy from my brand?
Brand Analytics covers the data you need to understand your customer base, their purchasing power, interests, purchasing behavior, and how they find your products. When leveraged correctly, the data from Brand Analytics can help you curate a powerful marketing strategy that speaks to your target customers and drives sales.
Brand Analytics isn’t a single dashboard; it comprises several dashboards, each giving you specific insights. The dashboards you can expect to find in Brand Analytics are:
- Search Query Performance
- Search Catalog Performance
- Customer Loyalty Analytics
- Demographics
- Repeat Purchase Behavior
- Market Basket Analysis
- Top Search Terms
While this data is a powerful resource that helps you get a clear picture of your brand’s performance, you must know how to process it and apply it to your Amazon growth strategy. Crunching all the numbers from your brand analytics might seem like an uphill task, and that’s where My Real Profit comes in. Our software suite equips you with the tools you need to make sense of your data and chart a data-driven strategy to scale your business on Amazon.
Amazon Posts
Amazon Posts is an Amazon feature that taps into the emerging social commerce trend. It allows brand-registered sellers to showcase their products using lifestyle photos on a scrollable feed that resembles social media. Social commerce has been on a steady upward trend since 2018, with a market penetration of 23.6% in 2023, as shown in the graph below.
Amazon Posts allow you to highlight your products in a format familiar to most shoppers — a social media feed. Posting your products in a social media format encourages product discovery and engagement without shoppers leaving the Amazon platform. It also allows you to amplify your brand voice, connect with potential customers, and drive traffic to your product listings and Amazon Storefront.
Manage Your Experiments
Manage Your Experiments is an Amazon tool that lets brands registered with Amazon Brand Services conduct A/B testing with two content versions. According to Amazon, this tool can help increase sales by 25%. You can experiment with different images, titles, bullet points, or product descriptions and directly measure the impact of these changes on your brand’s performance.
The goal is to determine which of the two versions resonates better with customers based on metrics like impressions, click-throughs, and conversions. Once you have the performance insights, you can use My Real Profit’s data analysis software suite to analyze your data and make better data-driven decisions.
Using the Manage Your Experiments tool is straightforward; you select a product and create two versions of the product detail page content (A&B). Amazon then splits traffic between these two versions, collects data on performance metrics, and provides insights on which version is more effective. You can then leverage this data to create content that resonates with shoppers, maximizing visibility and conversions.
Common Challenges Brands Face When Enrolling to Amazon Brand Registry
Enrolling in the Brand Registry isn’t without challenges. There are common challenges that brands face when signing up for the Amazon Brand Registry. Let’s explore them and how you can navigate them.
Trademark Verification Issues
One of the common issues with brand registration is the trademark verification process. An active trademark is a requirement for registering your brand on Amazon. It’s not uncommon for a brand to have its trademark application rejected, delayed, or even not recognized by Amazon.
To avoid this pitfall, you must ensure your brand status is active and fully registered before initiating your Amazon brand registration. Remember also to keep all related documentation readily accessible and ensure it matches your brand’s details. If you’re facing delays and rejections, you may benefit from consulting with a legal expert specializing in trademarks and IP—which you should do either way during your trademark application.
Brand Ownership Documentation
Another common stumbling block you will likely face during the Amazon Brand Registry application is the required comprehensive brand ownership documentation. Amazon requires you to prove your brand’s ownership to its satisfaction. This can be an uphill task if your brand has licensing agreements or operates as part of a larger conglomerate. It’s crucial to maintain an organized record of all legal documentation that stipulates the trademark’s ownership and rights of usage. These documents may include:
- Licensing agreements
- A letter of authorization from the trademark owner (if you’re a licensee)
- Or a statement of brand ownership from the parent company
Mismatched Brand Information
Discrepancies between the brand information provided to Amazon and the details on the trademark registration can impede the Brand Registry enrollment process. This includes mismatches in the brand name, logo, or other identifying details. Conduct a thorough review of your Amazon account details and official trademark registration to ensure consistency in the brand name, logo, and any significant identifying information across these platforms.
Navigating Amazon’s Policy Requirements
Understanding and adhering to Amazon’s specific policy requirements for the Brand Registry program can also present challenges. These policies may change over time, adding another layer of complexity for brands trying to stay compliant. To ensure compliance, you must always stay updated on Amazon policy changes. You can also hire an Amazon policy compliance expert to help you navigate the policy requirements for Amazon brand registration.
Addressing Counterfeiters Proactively
While the Amazon Brand Registry is designed to help protect against counterfeits, enrolling in the program is just the first step. You must remain vigilant and proactive in monitoring for infringements, which can be resource-intensive. Amazon registry equips you with tools like the Report a Violation tool to enable efficient reporting of potential IP infringements. Enrolling on Amazon’s Transparency Program can help you protect your brand against counterfeits. The transparency program assigns each of your product units a unique code that customers can use to authenticate the legitimacy of your products. This makes it almost impossible for counterfeiters to pass their products as the original.
Protect Your Brand With Amazon Brand Registry
Amazon Brand Registry isn’t just another program you should consider. It’s a powerful brand-building and protective tool that can revolutionize your presence on Amazon. By registering your brand, you declare to your customers and competitors that you take your brand’s image, presence, and authenticity seriously. With the analytics software on My Real Profit, you can make the most of your brand analytics to scale your brand and expand your market share on Amazon. Book a demo with us now to experience the power of your analytics software suite.