Amazon extends anti-counterfeiting program to Europe

Amazon has extended its anti-counterfeiting program Project Zero to Europe. With this initiative, which launches in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, the ecommerce giant wants to drive the number of counterfeits on its platform to zero.

In March of this year, Amazon unveiled the Project Zero program in the US. By combining technology, machine learning and innovation with “the sophisticated knowledge that brands have of their own intellectual property”, Amazon wants to get rid of fake products on its platform.

Amazon launches Project Zero in Europe

And now, Amazon have announced this anti-counterfeiting program have launched in Europe: in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. In the US, over 3,000 brands have already enrolled in the program.

3 tools to stop counterfeits on Amazon

In order to make sure customers get authentic goods when shopping on Amazon, the ecommerce company uses three tools. The first are automated protections that proactively and continuously scan the online store for suspicious listings. Since the launch this March, this tool have stopped over 65 million listings before a customer ever saw hem.

The second tool is a self-service counterfeit removal tool, which gives enlisted brands the ability to remove counterfeits themselves. These removals also improves the automated protections. “For every one suspected counterfeit that a brand removes from our store, Amazon proactively blocked or removed more than 500 suspected bad listings”, the company explains.

Combo of automated protections and serialization is best

The third tool is product serialization, which is a unique code that brands apply within their manufacturing process. This allows Amazon to scan and confirm the authenticity of every single purchase. “While product serialization is optional, brands enrolled in Project Zero are seeing the best results when using product serialization. So far those enrolled brands haven’t even used the self-service counterfeit removal tool for their serialized products because the combination of automated protections and serialization has helped drive counterfeits to zero.”