How to Protect Yourself from Amazon Seller Black Hat Attacks?

Bradley Sutton, Helium 10’s Director of Customer Success and Training, is back with more answers to your most sought-after questions. In this episode Bradley is answering the question, “How do I protect myself from Black Hat attacks?”

The short version is: there’s no foolproof way. No matter how much you arm yourself, there’s still always a chance you’ll be targeted by black hat tactics.

You CAN take additional steps to better protect yourself, however.

One of the top ways to protect yourself is with Brand Registry. If you’ve been doing your research, you’ve probably heard this over and over already, but if you’re not up to speed on Brand Registry, click here to find out more.

Basically, Brand Registry will safeguard your private label brands against the brunt of black hat tactics. Brand Registry makes it infinitely more difficult for would-be hijackers to alter your listing content, sell counterfeits under your listing, steal the buy box from you, and more, as they would need the approval to sell your protected products.

While, again, you won’t be 100% safe from black hat sellers this way, Brand Registry is a precaution you should be taking regardless. It’s basic-level protection, like a lock on your house’s front door. You wouldn’t forgo a lock on your door just because it wouldn’t 100% keep out burglars, right?

That said, there are a few other things you can do to prepare against hijackers.

One of those is to use Helium 10’s Alerts tool (bet you didn’t see that one coming). This tool will monitor your listings 24/7 and let you know when any changes that you didn’t authorize are made to your listing. This includes any edits of the listing’s copy, if someone steals the buy box from you if someone starts selling on your listing (visible in the ‘also available from these sellers’), and more.

24-hour surveillance means you get a notification at any hour of the day, the moment a change is made to your listing. Instant alerts means you can respond to threats virtually immediately.

Alerts also takes daily screenshots of your listings so that you have a running record of your content. This makes it easier to spot changes over the long run and to have historical proof you can provide to Amazon that changes were made, in the event that you need to file a case against a hijacker.

Another tactic we suggest is to avoid the top TOP sellers. Competition gets incredibly cutthroat around the high-volume top tier items, especially for items at a lower price bracket (such as the $20 and under range). 

Basically, why throw yourself to the wolves when you could stay out of their way instead and grow your sales without their interference?

So there you have it. Get Brand Registry, use Helium 10’s Alerts tools, and avoid the most saturated/competitive tiers.

Happy selling!