Whitney Gibson

Controlling Your Brand in the Age of Amazon Whitney Gibson

In today's world of retail, most brands:
? don't know the identity of retailers selling their products in online marketplaces;
? don't know where these online resellers sourced inventory of the brand;
? don't know what proportion of inventory going through distributors is redirected to online channels;
? don't adequately police activities involving resellers that offer the brand's products in new multipack quantities defined by the reseller (rather than by the brand);
? can't figure out how its brand is sold in countries where the brand doesn't yet have a distribution program of its own; and
? aren't managing the branding, packaging and UPC labeling of online products adequately to ensure consistency between online and brick-and-mortar inventory. What does it take for a brand to survive in this new environment? What controls need to be put in place? What existing sales and operational processes need to change? We answer these questions on this book from a combined business and legal perspective. Our book focuses on brands selling on marketplaces in the U. S. and the European Economic Area. As legal protections for brands differ around the world, we have chosen to focus on these specific markets where legal protections for brands are well established. For readers interested in applying brand control worldwide, we encourage them to seek legal guidance for each and every country where they plan to incorporate some form of legal enforcement into their brand control efforts.