Selling online is an excellent way to reduce your overhead costs, as you won’t need a physical location to sell your goods, and you won’t have to pay outrageous fees to established stores. Of course, when choosing to sell online, you’re going to have to find the right marketplace for your needs.
When it comes to online markets, you’ll find that Amazon is one of the most popular, and therefore has one of the largest customer bases. Amazon has a reputation for often siding with clients as opposed to vendors, though you’ll find that this is because vendors are the ones who violate the terms more often.
As long as you follow Amazon’s rules, you’ll never have a problem with them, and today we’re going to be discussing one of their policies which is actually in place to protect sellers. Brand gating on Amazon may sound complicated, but you’ll find that it’s actually a relatively simple idea, so let’s get into it.
What is Brand Gating?
To understand what brand gating is in the first place, you’re going to need to know how Amazon listings work. When a listing is placed on Amazon, the primary seller is the one who created the listing, and they’re the ones you’ll be buying from when you add and item to your cart directly.
However, other vendors can piggyback on these listings if they sell the same product, and this helps keep Amazon searches concise through the elimination of duplicate listings. When you decide to brand gate an item, you are locking other vendors out of your listings, and this can be for many reasons.
Keep in mind that you’ll only be able to brand gate a listing if you’re the maker of the product that you’re selling, and you need to prove this to Amazon. If you are merely reselling a product that’s made by another company, and you don’t have a prior arrangement for exclusivity, then there isn’t much you can do.
Why Brand Gate a Product?
So why would you want to brand gate on Amazon? There are a few different reasons why you’d want to do so. For example, let’s say that you run a small business that manufactures maternity clothing, and you’re selling well on Amazon but you find that your sales numbers start inexplicably dropping.
After a bit of investigation, you may find that your product has been counterfeited, and is being sold at a lower price and undercutting you. If a product is popular enough, counterfeiters will jump on the opportunity. By brand gating your product, you’ll be the only one who can sell it on Amazon.
Conclusion
Anyone else trying to sell your product will be instantly denied the minute they try to list their product when your brand is gated. While this is the main reason why you’d want to gate your brand, it can also prevent shoddy manufacturers from ruining your reputation, even if you don’t care about the loss of money.