How Can Brands Be Prepared For An Unplanned ‘Event’?

Product recalls are one of the most challenging events for brands to manage and a quick response with an effective plan for action is critical. Especially when it comes to the possibility of consumer safety. Online marketplaces and third-party sellers further complicate the issue.

Amazon is the most highly trafficked and utilized commercial marketplace on the planet. If your products are available on Amazon, it’s safe to assume that a significant portion of your brand’s distribution flows through its platform. The challenge is that Amazon’s sales and distribution model is not centralized, with sales being facilitated by hundreds and potentially thousands of individual storefront entities.

This gray area in your distribution model can be frustrating in and of itself but these frustrations can increase exponentially in the face of a regulatory event, such as mislabeled, expired, or recalled goods. POTOO helps hundreds of brands manage their marketplace presence through data driven insights.

In the event of a product recall, your supply chain and compliance experts have most likely established a plan for quickly disseminating recall information throughout your supply chain.  Distributors notify their customers, who can notify consumers. Your direct channels get in touch with historic purchasers and your retail partners manage their own customer base. Everyone audits their inventory and pulls relevant products from the shelves.

But what about the Amazon sellers? Thousands of sellers join Amazon’s marketplace daily. On a day-to-day basis, do you know who offered your products and in what quantities? Do you collect and aggregate data on the above and in the event of a recall or other regulatory event can you quickly and efficiently act on that data?

POTOO’s Amazon marketplace dataset gives you visibility around the storefronts offering your products and the quantities being offered. Our data is collected daily and archived for as long as you need it. If and when a recall or other event occurs, you can activate our event response service and the POTOO team will leverage your data to immediately distribute relevant recall information to these micro-distributors, past and present.

From a compliance and liability standpoint, making sure that you have actionable insights on non-traditional distribution channels can be crucial in proving your good-faith response to consumer protection issues. POTOO is attending the Natural Products Expo East Trade Show in Philadelphia, PA this month and we look forward to connecting with brands interested in best-in-class brand protection. 

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