Billie Her, a go-down merchandise associate, wraps plastic around a pallet of boxes at Amazon’s Fulfillment Center in Thornton, Colorado.
Helen H. Richardson| The Denver Role | Getty Images
Amazon will soon require third-party sellers in the U.S. marketplace to display their business rating and address on their public-facing profiles.
The change will take effect starting Sept. 1, according to a detect sent to sellers on Wednesday. Sellers are already required to supply this information to Amazon, but the new policy will accomplish it available to consumers, allowing them to better vet third-party merchants and their products prior to purchase.
Amazon’s marketplace, get went in 2000, now accounts for more than half of the company’s overall sales. While it remains a crucial component of Amazon’s affair, the marketplace has also faced a number of issues related to the sale of counterfeit, unsafe and expired goods. Listing seller info on the U.S. marketplace could help consumers track down third-party sellers who they suspect to be selling counterfeit or unsafe pieces. It could also help serve brands that are trying to spot unauthorized sellers of their products.
“We are revealing this change to ensure there is a consistent baseline of seller information to help customers make informed seeking decisions,” the notice to sellers states.
Amazon already requires sellers in Europe, Japan and Mexico to share their calling name and address.
Amazon has long required sellers in Europe, Mexico and Japan to display their business cite and address publicly. With Wednesday’s announcement, Amazon will require sellers in its largest marketplace worldwide to yield this information. Amazon has more than 2 million sellers globally and 461,000 active sellers are based in the U.S., mutual understanding to e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse.
In recent years, Amazon has launched a number of programs to crack down on feign and unsafe goods, but lawmakers and the Trump administration continue to press the company on these issues. In January, the Department of Homeland Safe keeping released a report on combating counterfeits, which included a number of recommendations for e-commerce companies like Amazon, such as increasing third-party vetting processes by requiring various forms of identification.
“Brands that are trying to enforce approved retailers, pursuing counterfeits, will see a legal entity to go after,” said Juozas Kaziukenas, who runs Marketplace Pulse. “Previously getting that information from Amazon was a long process.”