Brands spend enormous energy trying to remove unauthorized sellers from Amazon — filing IP complaints, sending cease and desist letters, monitoring listings daily. And all of that work matters. But it's treating the symptom, not the cause.
The cause, in almost every case, is your distribution agreements. If your contracts don't explicitly address online resale — and specifically Amazon — you're leaving the door wide open for your products to end up on the marketplace through channels you never intended. For how that shows up on the platform, start with how unauthorized Amazon sellers hurt your brand.
How Distribution Leaks Happen
Most distribution agreements were written before Amazon was the dominant force it is today. They cover territory, pricing, and volume — but they say nothing about where the distributor (or the distributor's customers) can sell your products online.
The result is a chain of events that's completely predictable. You sell to Distributor A at wholesale. Distributor A sells to Sub-Distributor B. Sub-Distributor B sells to a buying group that includes Seller C. Seller C lists your products on Amazon and undercuts everyone.
At no point did anyone violate a contract, because the contract never addressed this scenario. Every entity in the chain purchased the product legally. The first sale doctrine protects their right to resell. And now your brand is on Amazon at a price you didn't set, with content you didn't create, delivering a customer experience you can't control.
The Uncomfortable Conversation
Fixing this requires going back to your distribution partners and having a direct conversation about online resale. This is the step most brands put off the longest, because these are often long-standing relationships with real revenue attached.
But the conversation doesn't have to be adversarial. Most distributors understand that uncontrolled online pricing hurts everyone in the supply chain — including them. When Amazon sellers are undercutting the retail price, it erodes the value of the distributor's brick-and-mortar customers too.
The conversation is essentially this: "We need to update our agreement to include online resale restrictions. We're not trying to hurt your business — we're trying to protect pricing integrity across all channels, which benefits both of us." Tie that to how MAP enforcement protects your pricing on marketplaces.
What Updated Agreements Should Address
Without getting into legal specifics — every brand's situation is different and you should work with counsel — updated distribution agreements generally need to address several key areas.
Authorization for online resale. Who is allowed to sell your products on Amazon and other online marketplaces? If the agreement is silent on this, everyone in the chain assumes they can.
Minimum Advertised Price policies. Does your MAP policy extend to online marketplaces? Is it enforceable? Are there consequences for violations?
Sub-distribution restrictions. Can your distributor sell to sub-distributors who then sell on Amazon? This is often where the supply chain leak occurs — not at the direct distributor level, but one or two levels removed.
Territory restrictions for online sales. If you have exclusive distribution territories for brick-and-mortar, do those territories apply to online sales? In most legacy agreements, they don't.
Enforcement and consequences. What happens when a violation occurs? Without clear consequences, restrictions are just suggestions. Our full unauthorized seller removal playbook covers what to do when leaks still surface.
This Is the Foundation of Everything Else
You can file all the IP complaints you want. You can hire the best brand protection service available. You can run aggressive advertising and optimize every listing to perfection. But if your distribution agreements don't control the source of unauthorized Amazon sellers, new ones will appear as fast as you remove the old ones.
Distribution agreements are the foundation of Amazon brand control. Everything else — Brand Registry, enforcement, advertising, content — sits on top of that foundation. Without it, you're building on sand.
The good news: once you tighten the agreements and close the leaks, the rest of the Amazon strategy becomes dramatically more effective. Fewer unauthorized sellers means cleaner listings, better Buy Box control, more effective advertising, and a brand presence you can actually manage. Brand Registry is your next step once the contract layer is clear.