How to Get Amazon Brand Registered and Enhanced Brand Content
You have may heard of Amazon Brand Registry before. Brand registry is a way to protect your brand against counterfeiters but possibly more important than this is that Brand Registry gives you access to Enhanced Brand Content, also known as EBC. EBC can help lift your listing conversions up to 10%.
In this article I'll discuss how to get brand registered and also how to get a trademark, one of the requirements for being brand registered, for under $500.
What is the Amazon Brand Registry?
Amazon Brand Registry, at its heart, is a way for Amazon to try and take better control of its counterfeit problem. Brand registry, in Amazon's words, helps protect your registered trademarks (more on getting one of these cheaply later) and gives you increased authority over listings that use your brand name.
Most importantly, being Brand Registered gives you access to Enhanced Brand Content.
Amazon completely re-structured its Brand Registry program in April 2017. If you were Brand Registered before April 2017 you have to re-enroll in Brand Registry 2.0.
What Brand Registry Does and Doesn't Do
Amazon Brand Registry offers your brand some protection, but not unlimited protection.
Brand Registry Does Do
- Gives access to EBC including A+ content and video
- Gives access to other marketing tools like Early Reviewer Program
- Allows you to more easily report IP infringers
- Allows you to more quickly fix incorrect listing contributions
- Gives access to Global Catalog Identifier (GCID)
Brand Registry Doesn't Do
- Gate your item to prevent others from selling on it
- Prevent others from adding listing contributions
Being Amazon Brand Registered will protect your trademarked brand from being used in other people's listings. However, Brand Registry will not protect other people from selling your products. Even if you have a private label product that you do not resell to anyone, there could exist a grey market for your products (i.e. resale of Amazon returns, retail arbitrage, etc.). It is against Amazon's customers interests to limit the number of sellers for any products.
With Brand Registry you also get access to Global Catalog Identifier (GCID). A GCID, in short, gives you one unique product identifier across different Amazon marketplaces. Product descriptions can get very messy across different marketplaces so maintaining consistency is good.
Enhanced Brand Content
Enhanced Brand Content, also referred to as EBC or A+ is a feature within Amazon that allows you to add special formatting to your product descriptions. Here's an example of EBC for the Instapot.
This EBC content supplements the static text description that normally appears.
Other Examples of Enhanced Brand Content
Amazon estimates A+ content can increase conversions 3-10%. Our A/B testing doesn't show as significant of results but it can help.
More important than A+ content, Enhanced Brand Content allows you to add videos within your listings.
As Amazon becomes increasingly more competitive, EBC is a way to create a competitive advantage over the majority of your other competitors. In our review of over 100 listings, only 45% of brands are currently using EBC.
How to Register Your Brand
As mentioned, the first step to getting Enhanced Brand Content is to register your brand. To do so, you simply go to Advertising menu within Seller Central and click Enhanced Brand Content.
To register your brand you need the following:
- A brand name that has a live registered trademark (either a character or design mark)
- Images of the brand's logo
- Pictures of the brand on either the packaging or the product
- A list of product categories your products will be listed in
Everything on this list is fairly easy to achieve aside from the trademark part. Amazon is not judging the quality of your logo or your packaging. Your packaging, for all intents and purposes, can consist of an 8.5″x11″ piece of paper with your logo and product name taped to your product box.
The trademark requirement is slightly more tricky and I'll get into that shortly about how to do it cheaply.
How to Get Your Trademark for Cheap
The biggest issue in getting Brand Registered is having a trademark for your product. This was a new requirement instituted in April 2017.
There's two issues with the trademark requirement:
- Getting a trademark is fairly expensive. Trademark fees in the U.S. are $225-$400 plus lawyer fees if you choose to use a lawyer.
- Trademarks take a lot of time to be issued, often around a year in the U.S.. Because of this last point, you should start registering your trademark as soon as possible.
In terms of the the trademark fees, to register with USPTO, the organization responsible for issuing U.S. trademarks, you will pay $225-400 and lawyer fees. Lawyer fees will range from $300 for a cheap Upwork lawyer/para-legal and up to $2000+ for a larger firm. The alternative is to self-register which is entirely possible for an entrepreneur and will save you on legal fees (but not USPTO's fees).
Get Brand Registry Quickly with a UK Trademark
As of this writing, Amazon accepts trademarks from the following countries:
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Some of the wait times in these countries for trademarks is significantly less than the U.S.. Specifically, in the U.K. trademarks only take about 3-4 months to get issued.
If you use a service like trademarkia.com you'll pay around $800 for service fees and government filing fees. Having a UK trademark will get you Brand Registry but it will give you very limited IP rights within America so essentially this trademark is strictly for Brand Registry purposes.
Getting Your Trademark for Cheap
The absolute cheapest way to get your trademark is to self-register through USPTO's website. For a TEAS Plus application it'll cost you just $225. It is actually very easy to apply – you can do it in well under an hour and it's not very complicated. The hard part though is ensuring that your trademark will not be rejected by USPTO.
How to Not Have Your Trademark Rejected
Whether or not you self-register or use a lawyer, your biggest goal is to avoid having your trademark rejected by USPTO. I won't go into detail about what exactly a trademark is, but in summary it's a mark that's meant to distinguish your brand and avoid confusing consumers. There's a few key points to remember with trademarks (I'm not a trademark attorney so keep this in mind):
- Trademarks protect classes of goods, not all goods
- Trademarks cannot be generic or simply descriptive
- Spelling is not important – it is how the consumer perceives the brand (i.e. you would not be able to register Nikey as a show apparel brand because it conflicts with Nike's trademark)
The key to not having your trademark rejected is to find a non-generic word(s) that isn't confusing with any other brands in your space. The absolute easiest way to ensure your brand will be approved is to create a fictitious name for your brand (again this has to be a fictitious word in pronunciation, not simply in spelling!). Tech startups love to do this: Uber, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
Self-Registering Your Trademark for $225
OK so you've picked out a name for your brand (ideally it's a fictitious name so it isn't rejected). Here's a quick overview of how to apply to USPTO for your trademark and get it for $225.
- Go to the USPTO Trademark application website and fill out the TEAS Plus form.
- Fill in your contact details.
- Select the class your goods will be registered in. If you're selling running shoes, then simply search for running shoes (there's a built in form) and select this as the class of your goods (which is incidentally class 25). What class you decide to protect your trademark under will not impact your ability to get Amazon Brand Registered. If your sole purpose of getting a trademark is to get Amazon Brand Registered then you can be very liberal and quick in selecting a category here.
- Select your filing basis (whether you're currently using the trademark name or not). If you already have a website with the trademark name on it this would mean you are category 1a. If you have never ever used the trademark name in ANYTHING, then select 1b.
- Fill in correspondence information and submit payment.
It is really that easy. If your mark is fictitious or truly unique you likely will not run into any problems. If there are any name conflicts, USPTO will give you a chance to respond but in reality, the vast majority of the time USPTO objects to a trademark application, there is little chance of changing their opinion and it's best to re-file with a name mark.
Conclusion
As Amazon becomes increasingly more competitive, Enhanced Brand Content is just one more way to create a competitive advantage for your products and brand while at the same time protecting your brand from hi-jackers.
Do you have any questions about getting your trademark or Brand Registered? If so, share in the comments below.
Hey Dave,
“If your mark is fictitious or truly unique you likely will not run into any problems.”
Wish I’d thought about it from this angle a year back when I created my brand. I’m locked in no mans land with the USPTO because there’s 2 other suspended applications pertaining to one of the words in my brand! The only winners are the lawyers. Sigh…
Yep – $3000 in lawyer fees later I finally have mine approved :)
Thanks so much!!! I have been putting this off for years, took me 40 minutes to do. Looking forward to unlocking enhanced content :)
Glad to hear Stephen :)
Hey Dave, if I find it’s too hard to trademark my brand, can I switch to a a new seller /brand name name but retain my seller account under the original name? Feels like I need a plan B in case I can’t get brand registered with my original name.
The only goal at this point is to get into Bran Reg 2.0
I might also have a go at the UK trademark as the final try !
I might be understanding your question wrong, but the seller name and brand name are totally unrelated. We’ve always had seller names totally unrelated to our brand names.
Hey Dave,
What kind of information did you have to submit to USPTO as far as your personal I.D. and/or business info ?
What did you have to provide for your product (images of product, logo, packaging etc..)?
Also, did you consider going through the CIPO?
Thanks
Hi AJ, not much. You can register personally or as a business. You can provide anything that shows the mark in use, packaging or a website showing the items for sale normally suffices. In hindsight, getting a Canadian mark probably would have been the easier and quicker way.
Dave,
As a fellow canuck, would you recommend using a US based lawyer to help with the filling out of the application or is it pretty straight forward?
It’s quite straight forward assuming your mark is unique and unlikely to be in conflict with anyone else.
Hey Dave,
I’m struggling to get my head around one part. When you file for a trademark on USPTO, is it best to file for the logo that will go on your product OR the name which will go on the packaging?
For example, I have the name Smith & Smith, this is what will be on my listing, this will be on my packaging. But the logo is S&S which I will put on the products, as my product is quite small and I don’t want the words Smith& Smith to be on there. Ideally, I don’t want to trademark both just yet as this will cost quite a bit of money for my first product. So, would it be best to trademark the words or the logo?
Does this matter for Brand registry?
Amazon needs your logo to have stylized words trademarked. If you can’t do that, then you’ll need a word mark (if you can get it approved).
Thanks for the really helpful arrticle!
Do I need to register my company brand name only or also the name of the product? For instance, if my company is NIKE and I’m selling a shoe on Amazon that’s called the “Kyrie 6”, would I have to tradmark the company name and the shoe name?
Thank you
Just the brand name. It doesnt matter what your company name is.
Hello,
Can someone help with the following error message? I had done everything possible but I am still getting it.
Due to your current account status, you are not eligible to enroll a new brand in Amazon Brand Registry at this time. Please contact the Seller Performance team to address your selling account status before reapplying. They can be contacted via email at: seller-performance@amazon.com.
I had emailed them constantly and I do not get any information back.
Hey Dave!
If we’re an exclusive distributor for a brand in the US, is there any way we can access Brand Registry and EBC? Our partner/supplier has already registered trademark in the US, and they’re willing to provide supporting documents directly to Amazon stating that we’re their exclusive distributor, and that we can use their trademark freely. Any thoughts on how this might work? Any info or guidance you could share would be greatly appreciated!!
I’m not sure there’s an easy way without ownership of the brand. I could be wrong. The alternative is getting setup as a secondary user for the brand owner.
Hi Dave,
I read in amazon website (link: https://brandservices.amazon.com/brandregistry/eligibility) that pending trademark registration is only accepted if we use the the Amazon IP Accelerator (which can be expensive).
However, an article argued that now Amazon accepts any kind of pending trademark regardless who filed it. If that’s the case, I am planning just to go to the USPTO website and do everything myself to save some costs.
What’s your recommendation? Thanks a lot in advance.