You open your listing and there is a new seller on it. Cheaper than you. Holding the Buy Box. Your Sponsored Products ads quietly stop serving, and the sales on the listing you built now go to someone else.

So how do you get them off, and how do you stop it from happening again?

What Is an Amazon Listing Hijacker?

A hijacker is any seller who attaches an offer to your ASIN without your permission. They sell "your" product on your detail page, using your images, your reviews and often your ad traffic.

There is a second meaning too. Some people use "hijacked listing" for when someone changes your title, images or brand name on the detail page. That is a content problem, not an offer problem. Both are common. Both are fixable. They just use different tools.

What Kind of Hijacker Do I Have?

This is the step most brands skip. They see a new seller, panic, and file a counterfeit claim. If the product is real, Amazon rejects it.

Here is how the main types compare:

A quick tell: look at the seller's storefront. If they have 3,000 random products across 40 categories, you are probably looking at a reseller or arbitrage seller. If they have 12 products that all copy top sellers, look closer for counterfeit.

How Do I Remove a Hijacker Step by Step?

Go in this order. Speed matters, but evidence matters more.

1. Confirm the offer. Open the listing in a private browser window. Check "Other sellers on Amazon." Write down the seller name, seller ID, price, fulfillment method and ship-from location.
2. Do a test buy. Order one unit from the hijacker with a buyer account that is not linked to your seller account. Keep the order ID, screenshots of the offer, and photos of the package when it arrives.
3. Compare it to your real product. Packaging, inserts, labels, materials, logo placement, barcodes. Photograph every difference side by side.
4. File in Report a Violation. If you are in Brand Registry, use the Report a Violation tool. Amazon moved it to structured forms in July 2026, with a Submission History tab that shows each report's status. Choose the violation type that matches what you found. Counterfeit, trademark misuse and "materially different" are not the same claim.
5. File a buyer-side report too. From the test buy account, report the item as not as described or suspected counterfeit, with photos.
6. Send a short cease and desist. Optional, but it works on a lot of small sellers. Reference the test buy, state the issue, ask them to remove the offer. No threats you cannot back up.
7. Escalate and follow up. If the case stalls, reply inside the same case, reattach evidence and ask for escalation. Do not open five new cases with five different stories.

One rule: never make false claims to get a competitor removed. Amazon treats abuse of its reporting tools as a violation in itself, and your Brand Registry access is worth more than one offer.

What If the Seller Is Selling My Real Product?

This is the hard one, and the honest answer is not what most brands want to hear.

If the units are genuine and in the same condition you sell them, Amazon generally will not remove the seller on trademark grounds. Your contract with a distributor is between you and the distributor. Amazon is not going to enforce it for you.

So you work upstream:

• Find the leak. Test buys often tell you. Lot numbers, inserts, prep labels or retailer stickers point to which distributor, retailer or liquidation channel the units came from.
• Tighten your agreements. Name who is allowed to sell online, and on which marketplaces. Then enforce it every time, not once.
• Change what "genuine" means. A warranty that only applies to units bought from authorized sellers, or a product version made only for your Amazon channel, gives you a real "materially different" case.
• Stop selling to people who resell on Amazon. Sounds obvious. In most accounts we look at, the reseller is buying from someone the brand already sells to.

How Do I Keep Hijackers Off My Listing for Good?

Removal is a fight you win one seller at a time. Prevention is where you actually win.

• Get into Brand Registry. It requires a pending or registered trademark and a logo on the product or packaging, per Amazon's Brand Registry page. Without it you have almost no tools.
• Enroll in Transparency. Each unit gets a unique code Amazon checks before it ships. Amazon says more than 2.7 billion units have been verified as genuine through Transparency (Amazon Brand Registry, May 2026 data).
• Consider Project Zero. It lets eligible brands remove counterfeit listings themselves. It is powerful, which is why Amazon expects you to use it carefully.
• Never run out of stock. When your offer goes out of stock, another seller's offer can win the Buy Box on your own listing. In Q4 that can cost you the best sales weeks of the year.
• Make your product hard to copy. Embossed logos, custom inserts, unique packaging. It makes counterfeits easier to prove and less profitable to make.

Amazon is working on this too. It seized and disposed of more than 15 million counterfeit products in 2025, and its Counterfeit Crimes Unit has pursued more than 32,000 bad actors since 2020, according to Amazon's 2026 Trustworthy Shopping Experience Report. That helps. It does not replace watching your own listings.

How Do I Check for Hijackers in Seller Central?

Do this weekly. It takes 15 minutes once you have the routine.

1. Business Reports > Detail Page Sales and Traffic by Child Item. Look at Featured Offer (Buy Box) Percentage for your top ASINs. Anything under 95% on a listing only you should sell needs a look.
2. Inventory > Manage All Inventory. Check offer counts and Buy Box status on your top sellers.
3. Brand Registry > Report a Violation > Submission History. Track every open case and its outcome.
4. Brand Registry > Brand Dashboard. Review alerts and listing quality issues for your brand.
5. Voice of the Customer dashboard. Spikes in "not as described" or quality complaints on a listing that did not change are a classic counterfeit signal.
6. Advertising Console. Sponsored Products ads generally only serve when your offer holds the Featured Offer. A sudden drop in impressions on one ASIN, with no bid or budget change, is often a lost Buy Box.
7. Restock Inventory report. Any top ASIN with less than 4 weeks of cover in Q4 is a hijack risk.

How We Handle This at Globious

Brand protection is part of how we run every account, not an add-on we sell later.

In the first 30 days of the Podium Protocol we map every offer on the catalog, check Buy Box share per ASIN, check Brand Registry and Transparency status, and trace where outside units are coming from. Then we fix the source, not just the symptom.

Arber is the clearest example. The brand had a reseller problem and no real control over its catalog. We fixed catalog control and brand integrity first, built the right foundation, and then grew. Arber went from 0 to 7-figure revenue.

Growth on a listing you do not control is growth you are renting.

Common Mistakes

• Filing a counterfeit claim on a genuine product. It gets rejected, and repeated bad claims hurt your credibility with Amazon. Diagnose first.
• Lowering your price to win back the Buy Box. You just taught the hijacker your floor and gave away margin. Fix the cause.
• Blaming the ads when sales drop. If impressions fall off a cliff on one ASIN, check the Buy Box before you touch bids. Raising bids does nothing if your offer is not the Featured Offer.
• Treating it as a one-time fire. Hijackers come back, especially in Q4. Prevention is a weekly routine.
• Waiting for your agency to notice. Many agencies only look at the ad console. If nobody on your team checks offers and Buy Box share weekly, nobody is checking.

The Bottom Line

Most hijacker problems are solvable, but only if you know which problem you have. Run a test buy this week on any seller you do not recognize. Then file the right claim, or fix the supply chain leak if the product is real. And before Black Friday, make sure your top ASINs will not run out of stock.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Amazon remove a seller who is selling my genuine product?

Usually not on trademark grounds. If the units are real and in the same condition you sell them, Amazon does not enforce your distribution agreements. You can act if the units are materially different, used, damaged or missing parts, and you can cut off the source of the inventory.

How long does it take Amazon to remove a hijacker?

It depends on the claim and the evidence. Clear counterfeit cases with a test buy and side-by-side photos tend to move faster than vague "unauthorized seller" claims. Track every report in the Submission History tab of Report a Violation and escalate inside the same case if it stalls.

Do I need Brand Registry to remove hijackers?

You can report problems without it, but your options are very limited. Brand Registry gives you Report a Violation, priority on listing content, and access to Transparency and Project Zero. It requires a pending or registered trademark.

What is the difference between Transparency and Project Zero?

Transparency puts a unique code on each unit, and Amazon checks it before shipping, so counterfeit units are stopped before they reach a customer. Project Zero lets eligible brands remove counterfeit listings themselves without filing a report. Transparency prevents. Project Zero removes.

Why did a hijacker appear right when I ran out of stock?

When your offer is out of stock, other offers on the listing can win the Buy Box. Sellers watch for this, especially in Q4. Keeping enough inventory cover on your top ASINs is one of the simplest ways to protect your listing.

Should I lower my price to beat a hijacker?

Rarely. You give up margin, and if the hijacker is selling counterfeits they can go lower than you every time. Remove them with evidence, or fix the supply chain, and keep your price where your brand belongs.

If you want to talk through how to grow your Amazon brand on a listing you fully control, book a call with Mayer.