Why is limiting your product benefits to authorized sellers only a positive move? To understand we have to back up a little.
It is well-known that brands face constant challenges in their eCommerce channels. Unauthorized sellers, stolen and counterfeit products, and other disrupters can drive down revenues and hurt the brand’s reputation. Most brands implement a holistic eControl Program comprised of data, technology, and legal services to efficiently and effectively address these issues. An eControl Program works best when key leadership within the brand is aligned with its process and objectives. But getting alignment from outside the brand, from consumers and influencers, can also be important to the brand in implementing the eControl Program.
For example, the material benefits — often warranties and satisfaction guarantees that are limited to purchases from a brand’s authorized seller network — frequently help form the “unauthorized seller legal foundation” component of the eControl Program. This is often an area where combining internal and external alignment can be important.
Internally, the brand’s customer service teams may worry that limiting a product’s important benefits to purchases from authorized sellers may actually hurt, not help, their brand. They worry it may alienate customers who learn that the product is warranted or guaranteed only if it’s purchased from an authorized seller.
Externally, this worry may be even greater for brands who rely heavily on social media influencing for brand awareness and growth, where a bad move in customer satisfaction can potentially make a brand go viral for the wrong reasons – either through a product or influencer review.
Fortunately, this worry is largely misplaced and outweighed by the benefits to both consumers and brands of limiting important product benefits to products purchased from authorized sellers. Why? Because this limitation is pro-consumer, pro-safety, and brand-positive. Implemented and messaged appropriately and correctly, this component strengthens a brand’s reputation in the market. These benefits are further realized if the brand can bring some influencers into the fold.
Limiting material benefits to purchases from a brand’s authorized sellers draws a quality-based line between the product sales by authorized sellers (subject to the brand’s quality controls and customer service standards) and everyone else – the diverters and bad actors who are not subject to such controls and are not even aware of them. As a result, the products that these unauthorized sellers sell on Amazon, Walmart, and other online forums may be damaged, prior models, previously used, broken, expired, or even counterfeit.
This is why many brands limit their important product benefits to only those sellers who are subject to the brand’s quality controls. For sellers who are not subject to such controls, the potential for a poor customer experience is much higher.
This is also where bloggers and influencers can become important allies. These persons can educate audiences about the pro-consumer and pro-safety aspects of buying from a brand’s authorized sellers; this can be a particularly important topic in certain product verticals, like baby gear and other consumables. By relating the unique benefits of buying products from the brand’s authorized sellers, bloggers, and influencers can protect their followers’ interests while supporting the brand’s efforts to deliver on its promises.
Here are a few suggestions for getting bloggers or influencers to support a brand’s efforts:
If you have any questions about limiting your product’s material benefits to purchases from authorized sellers, or how influencers can be wielded to spread that message, contact your Vorys eControl attorney or contact our team below.
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