Amazon on Monday introduced a new program to get more products onto “Amazon Transparency,” a verification program that weeds out counterfeits so customers aren’t duped into buy a fake device or gadget.
The company said that Amazon Transparency would work with the individual product serialization systems, a level of interoperability that means more products can get automatically incorporated into the program without the fuss of an extra layer of verification.
“Interoperability will enable brands that already have their own product serialization on their products or packaging to benefit from Transparency’s protections easier, faster, and without requiring any changes to their existing manufacturing and packaging processes,” said Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of world wide selling partner services for Amazon.
The program is the latest step taken by Amazon to make it easier for consumers to distinguish between a legitimate product and a counterfeit, which still remains a challenge with the flood of products on the retail platform. Despite its best efforts, Amazon still contends with a number of copycat products, all with their own positive 5-star fake reviews.
Amazon’s Transparency program kicked off in 2016, and required retailers put on a separate “2D Data Matrix” barcode in order to operate under the program. The company said that retailers complained about that extra step, since it comes on top of the product codes that they’ve added to their own products. To make things easier, Amazon has allowed the Transparency program to read those individual retailer codes.
The company tested this program with a few key retailers, including Belkin, Logitch and Samsung, and are widening it to Amazon’s stores in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the U.S.
“Transparency’s compatibility with our existing serial codes is unique. There is no other program out there that allows us to use our existing serial numbers—the ones we use for warranty purposes—and then provides the capability to validate each separate unit shipped as genuine,” said Annie Joe, head of global supply chain at Logitech, in a statement from Amazon.
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