Overview

Amazon’s marketplace continues to attract opportunistic sellers who attempt to profit from established brands by inserting counterfeit or unauthorized items into genuine listings. In 2024, these hijackers have refined five distinct tactics that can erode brand integrity, depress revenue, and damage customer trust. Brands that sell on Amazon need to recognize each method and deploy precise countermeasures to protect their listings.

Key Points

• Listing Hijack — Fraudsters duplicate a legitimate product’s ASIN and launch a look‑alike page that mirrors the title, images, and bullet points, siphoning sales away from the original seller.
• Fake Review Infiltration — They flood the compromised listing with fabricated five‑star reviews, inflating its ranking while the actual product quality remains subpar.
• Price Undercutting — By pricing the hijacked item well below the brand’s suggested retail price, they capture the Buy Box and force the authentic seller into an unsustainable price war.
• Unauthorized Variations — Hijackers add bogus size, color, or bundle options—such as a “Neon Green” version of a product that only exists in “Black”—to the parent ASIN, steering shoppers to their inventory.
• Brand Registry Exploitation — Even brands enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry can be targeted when hijackers exploit gaps in the registry’s automated monitoring, resulting in delayed takedowns.
• Marketplace Policy Exploitation — Some hijackers manipulate Amazon’s policy enforcement timelines, filing false infringement claims to temporarily remove the legitimate seller’s offer and replace it with their own.

How Hijackers Operate

1. ASIN Duplication — The attacker selects a high‑traffic ASIN, reproduces the exact product title, main image, and feature bullets, and publishes a new listing under a different seller ID; for example, a seller copies the packaging photos of a best‑selling vitamin supplement and lists the replica as a separate offer.
2. Counterfeit Stock Insertion — Once the duplicate page is live, the hijacker ships low‑cost counterfeit units to Amazon’s fulfillment centers, allowing customers to receive inferior goods that still appear under the brand’s name, which later generates negative feedback that the brand must address.