Amazon Brand Registry 2.0 has represented a crackdown on those unscrupulous bottom feeders who frankly have no ethical boundaries. So I’m a fan of the idea that Amazon are taking responsibility for shoring up this experience. Hey, at the end of the day it was a risk to their business model, “Amazon” could have become synonymous for “fake crap”.
So don’t kid yourself if you have an Amazon seller account, they didn’t do it for you!
All that being said, there are some complexities that come with Brand Registry (this may well have been the case for 1.0) but recent experiences with 2.0 have prompted me to record the outcome (well actually we’re in the middle of it).
As a reminder those Brand Registry Benefits include:
- Access to Enhanced Brand Content for Listings
- Ability to Create an Amazon Storefront
- Brand Protection (the Amazon sort)
So how do you expand your brand registry to more marketplaces?
So there’s a working principle you need to get your head around, pretty sharpish. A Brand Registry account is NOT an Amazon Seller Account. This is of vital importance that you get your head around this.
Brand Registry is YET another system, with more login credentials. Whichever Marketplace you initially register your brand with Amazon becomes essentially the central “Node”, the “Administrator”, the “Master”.
When you then want to gain access to the Brand Registered benefits in other Amazon Marketplaces you need to “Create a Brand Registry Account” in the Marketplace you’re expanding to.
Let’s test that working principle…
You may have a seller account in the USA and UK marketplaces. From the UK you also sell in the rest of the European Marketplaces. In essence you have 2 seller accounts that are linked in this particular case.
How many Brand Registry accounts do you have as a result of having all of the above?
The answer: NONE
That’s right. Remember, Amazon Seller account does NOT equal Brand Registry Account.
So you register your brand in the USA as an example. In this case, you create an Amazon Brand Registry account in the USA. It might just so also happen that you use the very same login credentials for your brand registry account as your Amazon seller account – in reality this implies no link at all.
So now you have a registered brand in the USA, how do you enable the use of this brand in the marketplaces?
Quite rudimentary really, but essentially you put in a support request. There’s a structured request that is specifically for this type of action.
Once you’re in the Brand Registry Support Section:
- Find the tab that says “Update Your Brand Profile” and click
- Then click “Update Role For User Account”
- Then fill in the form
But hold your horses. In filling in that form you should be asking the question: “What the hell does; Enter the Email Address login of the Brand Registry user account: mean?!”
Before you can add a Brand Registry account from another marketplace you need to CREATE a BRAND REGISTRY ACCOUNT in those other marketplaces. That’s right. In EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ONE. What’s more, each one needs to have a different email address login credential.
Once you’ve created your Brand Registry Account in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK you then go and raise a support request to essentially give permission to each of those accounts to use your central “Node” Brand Registration.
So to recap on the steps to expand your brand registry…
- You need a unique email address for each of your Brand Registry Accounts in the different Marketplaces
- Once you’ve created your Brand Registry Accounts you head back to the ORIGINAL NODE account in which you originally registered the brand.
- Once you’re back in the NODE account, you then give permission to each of your other Brand Registry Accounts to use your Brand Registry.
- Permission is given through a support request that you create in Brand Registry Support
Importantly, the key role that you want to assign to each of the “Satellite” Brand Registry Accounts from the “Node” account is “Rights Owner”.
In addition to this role, we also make every “Satellite” Brand Registry Account an “Administrator”. It’s unclear whether you can do this in the same support request, so we do it in 2 requests.
The first support request will look like this:
Which would you like to do: Add, Update, or Remove a Brand Registry user account?
Add
Enter the Email Address login of the Brand Registry user account:
<Email Address of one of the “Satellite” brand registry accounts>
Enter the brand(s) that this request pertains to:
<Your Amazon Registered Brand Name>
Enter the role(s) that you would like the user account to have (Administrator, Rights Owner, or Registered Agent):
Rights Owner
The second support request then looks like this:
Which would you like to do: Add, Update, or Remove a Brand Registry user account?
Update
Enter the Email Address login of the Brand Registry user account:
<SAME Email Address of the “Satellite” brand registry account you previously entered>
Enter the brand(s) that this request pertains to:
<Your Amazon Registered Brand Name>
Enter the role(s) that you would like the user account to have (Administrator, Rights Owner, or Registered Agent):
Administrator
Repeat that for each of the individual Brand Registry Accounts and you’ll have expanded your Brand Registration Globally.
So what will it all look like once you’re finished?
By the time you’re finished you’ll more than likely have:
- A UK Seller Account
- A US Seller Account
- A US Brand Registry Account
- A UK Brand Registry Account
- A German Brand Registry Account
- A French Brand Registry Account
- A Spanish Brand Registry Account
- An Italian Brand Registry Account
- Worn out Patience…
- And I haven’t mentioned Australia, Japan, India, Canada, Mexico…
This is phenomenally complicated for a global organisation that should have the ability to manage things centrally. It feels an awful lot like their creating themselves a headache with all the “Account” overhead they’re creating. Especially when you consider that your interaction with your Brand Registry account is going to be non-existent after signup (unless you have to report a violation).
Complicated. But there is a process – at least now it’s been laid out here. We found our way to this information simply through banging our heads against a brick wall that seemed to move continuously.
Quite a techie article, but one that needed writing. It’s been painful (and the process isn’t yet complete for us, as we haven’t covered what happens when things go wrong in the above!) so it was worth sharing.
Until next time…
To access brand registry simply follow these links: