Comment by davinic
7 years ago
I'm a former marketplace seller. There is a way brands can accomplish this: marketplace items must contain all the features that the original brand provides. So the brand can create, say, a warranty that only applies when purchased form an "authorized seller". Since the company controls who is authorized, no other seller is able to include the warranty, and their offerings are not identical.
The difficult part in all of this is dealing with Amazon and their terrible marketplace back end.
> marketplace items must contain all the features that the original brand provides
Why should a buyer be expected to trust either Amazon, or the fulfiller, to decide which bait-and-switch sales don't count as bait-and-switch?
It wrongs both the buyer, who doesn't get what they ordered, and the original manufacturer, who is being subjected to something akin to 'passing off' in trademark law. You aren't allowed to hijack someone else's brand to sell your product. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off