A hijacker is a third-party seller who attaches an offer to your product's ASIN without your authorization. Some sell genuine stock bought through gray-market channels; some sell counterfeits or a different product entirely; some list with no stock at all to harvest orders they then fail to fulfill. Because Amazon lists all offers for an ASIN on one page, a hijacker who undercuts your price by a few cents can take the featured offer and, with it, most of your sales and your Sponsored Products eligibility.
Why it matters
Beyond the lost sales, a hijacker's product is reviewed on your listing. Counterfeit or damaged units generate one-star reviews and returns that count against the ASIN, not the hijacker, and your rating falls for something you did not sell. Ads make this worse: while the hijacker holds the Buy Box, your campaigns either stop serving or send traffic to their offer.
What you can do depends on evidence. Amazon will not remove a seller simply because a brand does not want resellers; it acts on intellectual property violations, counterfeit and policy breaches. A genuine product sold by an unauthorized reseller is a distribution problem to be solved upstream, not a violation Amazon will remove.
What moves it
- Brand Registry, which gives access to the Report a Violation tool and, in eligible categories, Project Zero and Transparency.
- A test buy of the hijacker's unit, which is how counterfeits and "materially different" products are proven.
- Price gaps. A large gap between your Amazon price and your wholesale or retail price invites arbitrage.
- Distribution agreements that control where genuine stock can be resold.
How we use it
When a hijacker appears, we pause ads on the ASIN if the Buy Box is lost, so spend is not sent to another seller. We document the offer, make a test buy where counterfeiting is suspected, and file through Brand Registry with the evidence. In parallel we check for the leak in distribution and, where the client qualifies, enroll in Transparency so future units carry a unique code Amazon checks at fulfillment.