project zero

Amazon rolls out Project Zero in India, empowers brands to remove counterfeit products

project zero

Sale of counterfeit or fake products remains one of the major problems for online shoppers and brands in India. In an effort to eliminate counterfeit products from their platform, e-commerce giant Amazon has launched a new initiative, Project Zero, in India.

This will allow brands to directly flag and remove counterfeit listings of their products from Amazon on their own.

“With this launch, we’re excited to see many more brands in India, from small and emerging entrepreneurs to large multi-national brands, partner with us to drive counterfeits to zero and deliver a great shopping experience for our customers,” said Dharmesh M. Mehta, Amazon Customer Trust and Partner Support Vice President, in a blog post.

Project Zero has three tools: automated protections, self-service counterfeit removal tool and product serialisation.

Automated protections, after fed in with key data points of brands such as trademarks and logos, scans the marketplace and claims to remove suspected counterfeits.

Whereas, the self-service counterfeit removal allows brands to remove counterfeit listings from the marketplace. Product serialisation, which is optional, will also help brands detect and stop counterfeiting for every product unit before it reaches a customer.

To be eligible for Project Zero, brands should be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry with a government-registered trademark. And it must have submitted reports of potential infringements with an acceptance rate of at least 90% in the last six months, according to Amazon India.

However, Amazon has not revealed details related to the cost of availing these services.

More than 7000 brands are said to be part of the Project Zero across the US, Europe and Japan. In India, close to 10 brands including Hindustan Unilever, Webby, Skudgear and House of Quirk participated in a pilot to help the company test the solutions.

“Project Zero’s self-service removal is fast, efficient, and our experience with Project Zero has been very positive. It helps emerging brands like us ensure we can move fast against counterfeiters, protect lost sales and focus on growing our brand” said Webby.

As per a recent survey by LocalCircles, about 38% of consumers out of 6,923 respondents have received a counterfeit product from an e-commerce site in the past year.

The Indian e-commerce industry loses billions of dollars in GMV due to products returns. This welcome move from Amazon will not only help them improve their efficiency and cut costs but also reassure their customers with every purchase.

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