Amazon will require U.S. sellers to share business info with customers

Amazon is attempting to make it more difficult for fraudulent third-party sellers to conduct transactions on its U.S. e-commerce site.

Beginning Sept. 1, 2020, the e-tail giant will display the business name and address of U.S. sellers on their Amazon.com seller profile page. For individuals, Amazon will display the individual name and address. This protocol will be consistent with seller profile pages across Amazon stores in Europe, Japan, and Mexico.

Amazon, which has recently been stepping up its efforts to combat the sale of counterfeit goods on its platform, posted an advance notice in its seller forum stating the change is designed to increase customer knowledge about third-party sellers.

“We are making this change to ensure there is a consistent baseline of seller information to help customers make informed shopping decisions,” Amazon said in the posting.

Third-party sellers can also add additional information about their business and products that they think would be helpful to customers to their profile. However, Amazon advises sellers to not include an email address in order to prevent “spam and abuse,” and instead use its Buyer-Seller Messaging system to communicate electronically with customers.

Other recent actions Amazon has taken to prevent the sale of counterfeit, unsafe, expired, and otherwise undesirable products through its site include forming a new global, multi-disciplinary Counterfeit Crimes Unit, filing a joint lawsuit against a New York-based counterfeiter with Italian luxury brand Valentino and supporting against Amazon sellers who allegedly sold counterfeit N95 respirators.

Amazon and other online retailers have been coming under increased pressure from the U.S. government to take a more active role in preventing fraudulent and counterfeit transactions from occurring on their platforms.