Amazon Best Sellers Best Law
Amazon Best Sellers
Honest reviews on best selling products at amazon
Williams Cashmere Men's 100% Cashmere Sol >
I bought this as a gift for my husband who wanted a warm, but dressier scarf. This scarf fits the bill very well. It is very soft and warm and compliments his grey wool coat well. The width is also very nice, wide enough to be cozy, but not so wide as to provide too much bulk. It is, however, a bit short. My husband is short (5'6") and doubled over it only hits him mid-chest. It is fine on him, but I would never buy it for someone over 6'.
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I got this for my husband as a gift and he absolutely loves it. Super soft and a great price.
Honest reviews on Williams Cashmere Men's 100% Cashmere Solid Knit Scarf
Very warm and quality scarf.
I bought serveral colors for my family. they are trend, warm and of very good quality
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Williams Cashmere Men's 100% Cashmere Solid Knit Scarf
I got this as a gift for my sister in law and she loves it. The cashmere is pretty thick and doesn't look cheap at all. Simple and classic!
Educational Insights Wireless Eggspert
Insight's Wireless Eggspert was to be their next generation in affordable game buzzer line. The concept is solid, as can be see by their Educational Insight Eggspert product, but it falls short on the transmitter to receiver end.
This product's main attraction is the wireless Answer Buttons (buzzers) which is specified to have a 20-30' range. Unfortunately the product was shipped to me with only 3 of the six Answer Buttons working fully and the other three working intermediately. Normally I would say this is just a product defect and requested an exchange, but in this case I also found out that when activated at the same time, only the blue buzzer would ring up. i. e. if more than one buzzer was pushed it didn't matter which on came in first if the blue buzzer was pushed within a couple of seconds of the others the blue buzzer would win out.
I think this product still has great potential but Insight needs to make sure their production line units all meet the same standards as the original wired version of this product. Until this happens I can't give this product any more that one star. Hopefully in a year this will improve and I can take back this review.
I was concerned about purchasing the wireless eggspert for my classroom because of the one bad review it received. I decided to go ahead and try it out and return it if it didn't work (even though I'd have to pay 6.50 for that). It's not the most durable thing so I hope no students toss it across the room or drop it too often. It works better the closer the buzzers are to the tower. However, I put fresh batteries in and tried it out. It seemed to work fine. As far as buzzer systems go, it's cheaper than others. I have no idea how long it will last, but it seems to do the job ok.
My students love the eggspert. I used another teacher's last year that used the wires. I bought the wireless and after putting batteries in everything worked except the yellow button. I tried replacing batteries, pushing softly, then harder, nothing. I am now in the process of sending it back.
A small percentage of our most recent batch of Wireless Eggspert units has a frequency tuning issue that makes transmission difficult or impossible. This issue has been completely resolved in our newest model, Wireless Eggspert 2.4 GHz. If you are experiencing difficulty with an original Wireless Eggspert unit, please contact info@educationalinsights. com for a replacement 2.4GHz unit, which will be shipped to you in March.
Thank you so much for your patience and understanding. We apologize for any inconvenience this product may have caused you.
Mr. Walczak's class. I purchased this item because I found the wired units very enjoyable during review games. I experienced very similar problems as everyone else seems to be having. Some of the buttons just don't seem to work, only my purple button works from more than 5 feet away, but none of the others. The teacher's remote must be within 2 feet just to clear the lights. And none of the buttons work dependably. This was extremely frustrating for my entire class. Also, the lights do not come with an AC adapter, you have to purchase this separately. For this price, they really should include it. Lastly, in total, you will need 16 batteries to run everything at once. Chargable units makes more sense. This company really needs to put more effort into this product. I higly recomend people not purchasing this item.
4) NEW Kenwood KFC-1693PS 6.5" 960 Watt 3-Way Car Audio Speakers KFC1693PS
Sounds great! love the bass and vocals are clear, awesome buy and has worked great so far, worth the money for sure
This was for my middle son, he has yet to install them : ( However he seemed quite satisfied with the gift
Brother Printer Wireless Monochrome Printer
I bought this printer to replace an inkjet that just went out. For subcontract work I do I need to print manuals ranging from 10-70 pages which this laser printer is great for, I also wanted to have a copier. I cannot comment on the scanner as I rarely use this feature on any of the multi-function units I have owned.
Pros: Decent price on factory toner compared to my other inkjet. I also liked that brother has multiple models all using the same TN-420/TN-450 toners so I don't feel like it be hard to get quality factory toner in a year or two.
Network connectivity, I was able to connect to my wireless network however due to prior issues with my linksys E2000 router, none of the computers could access the printer. I have advanced tech skills and still can not get the settings right for wireless networking Vs my old WRT54G and I don't have time to dumb the router to an access point that would resolve the issue. However, the wired connection works great, all computers on the same network instantly see the printer.
I highly recommend the network printer only/ local attached drivers if you only want to print and copy because it will remove ALOT of bloatware. I also suggest to set a manual IP or static DHCP on your router to avoid any issues with the unit changing IPs.
Cons: Like other reviews I find the fan to be somewhat loud for if you had to sit next to the printer all day and listen to it not a real deal breaker but something to consider. I put the printer on the bottom part of a TV stand where there is enough room for ventilation but the wood absorbs some sound and it is in a room that out of my way.
Like most printers these days, it feels pretty plastic and I wonder about reliability of constantly opening the scanner bed. Although, the printer was on sale which made the 2yr office max warranty $15 for a little piece of mind.
I got my unit for $100 during a sale since it is normally $200, for the price I paid it was too good of a deal to pass up I still believe I would have considered the full price after using it. Starter Toner is 700 pages. $45 for 1200 page toner. and I think $70 for 2600 page. If you want a network printer that is easy to setup, prints extremely fast and can live without color (At least 95% of what I print is black text anyways). I highly recommend this unit.
There are two main reasons I chose this Brother printer over the competition. The first is that it was the only wireless laser printer brand I could find that had an LCD display. That was important to me because it allows the printer to be connected directly to a wireless network without having to be temporarily connected to a PC to do the configuration. WIthout a built-in display you would have to connect it via a cable to a computer to do the configuration using the computer's display. I wanted something that was entirely independent of a PC's display, and this one is. Second, Brother seems to be using the old business model that HP and Canon once used, which is to charge more for the printer and supply the toner/ink at a reasonable cost. These days HP and Canon practically give away their printers but their ink and toner is very expensive. I love Canon inkjet printers especially, but their ink cartridges keep getting smaller and higher priced. Next time I buy an inkjet I will definitely check out the Brother models. Laser printers are much cheaper to operate than inkjet of course, and if you compare the price and capacity of the Brother TN450 cartridge that this machine uses to the price and capacity of similar HP and Canon machines you will see that this one has them beat.
Connecting to my wireless network via Windows 7 was a breeze. I used the automatic one-push setup and had the printer online in a couple of minutes. It does make noise, but does not seem any noisier that other laser printers I have used, although I have not tried the duplex feature yet. B&W print and copy quality is excellent. I haven't tried scanning color yet, but I suspect it will be more than adequate for my needs. It has a nice 250 sheet paper drawer, much more convenient than some of the competing machines which have the paper supply sticking out the back like an erect tail. I like that it quickly goes into sleep mode to conserve power and quickly comes back online when I send a print job or press a button.
This machine prints, copies and scans, but if you need a fax machine then check out the Brother MFC7860DW. It has the same specs as this model but has an ADF on top and fax capability. It usually sells for $50-80 more than this model.
This machine is exactly what I was looking for. I just wanted a wireless laser printer that was easy to set-up and economical to use, and this printer meets both of those criteria.
This printer is a new offering from Brother and I have only had it a couple of days, but my initial opinion is that it's a pretty good printer. Set-up was easy, I have it positioned about 40' from my (very old) router on a different level of my house and connectivity so far has been flawless. I have both printed and scanned without any issues. I currently have a desktop and two laptops setup to print to this printer, again, no issues. Print quality looks as you'd expect for a laser printer and scan quality seemed good as well. On duplex printing the page does come out slightly curled, but I think that's to be expected in a printer of this size. This is my first laser printer so I have nothing to compare it to, but the noise level does not seem bad at all, I can hear it from the next room but just barely and it's totally quiet while "sleeping". Print speed is very quick, I thinks it's rated for less than 10 seconds for the first print and that seems about right, it's very quick. As I stated earlier, I have not had this printer long, but so far so good. I got this for significantly under MSRP, don't buy it for list price. I'll try to provide an update after it's been in use for a while.
I have never owned a Brother Printer before. I have always used either HP, Canon, or Epson. To my thinking, printers like those made by Brother and Lexmark have seemed to be less reliable in times past. The past 5 months have proved me wrong. This Brother is an astounding printer at a terrific price.
All features work flawlessly and print quality is outstanding for this price range. Brother have upped their game over the last 4 or 5 years and I was tempted enough (after my HP and Canon both gave up the ghost) to look elsewhere. This Brother Printer (and I still have a Canon Pixma Inkjet for occasional color needs) is just a work horse. Flawless printing in regular and duplex mode. Originally, I just hooked a USB cable to it. but then set it up (pretty easy) to Wireless via it's built in interface. Works great.
Noise: I have seen a few comments about the noise level of this printer. I find it extremely quiet. FIrst of all, it is most usually "sleeping" in what appears to be OFF position. in this mode, the printer is totally quiet. No noise at all. If I send it a print job to it wirelessly, it wakes up pretty quick.. wait. let me time: It woke up and printed a single page in 20 seconds. So, keeping the printer in standby mode is not a problem (unless 20 seconds is too long for you to wait.
The printer returns to a quiet state after another 10 seconds (after printing) and then stays in this "alert" state for about 10 minutes. It is during this time that the printer will make some noise. Quite frankly, I don't usually notice it, it is so quiet. Then the printer returns to SLEEP mode and goes totally silent. So, there really is not a noise issue at all. In fact, my HP printer was much more noisy. The fact that it is most usually in Sleep mode, means that it is almost always completely silent. (If I had read all the reviews that said this printer was too noisy, I likely would not have purchased it. And I would have lost out on a great, quiet printer).
Cost per page: I am averaging just under a penny a page to print with this. that is so much cheaper than my ink jet! I am using the "toner save" mode, however. In fact, the thought of buying another ink jet with their incredible high cost of ink was one of the reasons I bought this Brother printer.
I love that the printer takes an entire ream of paper. I just load it and forget about paper for a long time! And Duplex mode (front and back of page printing, without needing to flip the paper!) has been a great feature that I didn't have before. That too is another savings feature. The copier works fine. I haven't tried scanning with this printer yet. And the cost per page on this printer. well, that is why I purchased it. this is a money saving baby!
Cons? Yes. One. The message about LOW INK comes on too soon. Being cheap, I usually ignore these prompts until the thing truly runs out of ink. With this printer, I can print several weeks before it really runs out of ink. FYI.
UPDATE 1-15-2012: Still love this printer! I wanted to update this about the one "con" I listed. Ink. More specifically, the message that you get to change the ink ("toner low message"). My advice is to ignore it. I printed for over two months before it truly ran out of ink. Even then, I never got a single bad printed copy. No "light print jobs," no "missing lines of text." When this printer really runs out of ink (OK, toner), it will simply refuse to print. Then it is time to replace the cartridge. I replaced mine with a Brother branded High Capacity toner cartridge. at least this first time. I would love to hear comments from others who may have used cheaper 3rd party cartridges. do they work well? Or should I stick with a Brother branded cartridge? Enjoy this printer!
Update 9-1-2012: Still going strong. just replaced first full toner cartridge. I just ignore the low toner printer warnings (however, you can turn off. I turn off the STOPPING because of low toner, to do this, Go to General Settings, and then number 4. Replace Toner, set to Continue.). Wait until you see the ink not filling the page or getting streaky. Then replace. You will go months past the first low toner warning (depending on volume of printing obviously).
This is my second Brother printer and I absolutely love both of them. The duplex printing option is especially welcome after having to muck around with manual feeding to do duplex for so long (the other one is an HL-2070N).
But be careful when installing the software, as the default "Install MFL-Pro Suite" option adds a third party program called PaperPort, which started popping up ads for other Nuance software from my system tray. This is completely unacceptable for the installation of a hardware driver, especially hardware that bills itself as a professional office product.
From what I gather, PaperPort is for scanning and organizing documents like receipts and such. So if you need that functionality you might tolerate the ads. But in an office environment it's most likely not worth it.
Amazon Seller Best Practices: 4 Habits of the Best Sellers
Don’t assume that selling on the world’s largest online marketplace is an instant ticket to riches. If you don’t follow rules and adopt Amazon seller best practices, the road to success will be long and uphill.
But have no fear: We’re here to empower you to make the smartest possible decisions with your Amazon store.
That’s why we’ve put together a short list of Amazon seller best practices that you can start using today.
These aren’t the same as the in-depth Seller Best Practices that Amazon published on its site. The image below is just a small sample of Amazon’s own seller best practices, and you should definitely get to know those, too!
The best practices that follow come directly from top Amazon sellers.
The beauty of the habits we highlighted is that if you adopt just one, you’ll see positive effects right away.
Read on to see which Amazon seller best practices you already follow and which ones you should start using today.
1. Plan ahead and stay organized
Planning and organization are vital best practices for Amazon sellers because there’s so much to think about every day.
If you’re just starting out, this could mean organizing your inventory into the most logical categories on Amazon. It could also mean planning your sourcing process and organizing your supplier network.
If you’ve been selling for a while, it could mean planning logistics for shipping and inventory replenishment. For some sellers, it could also entail researching and testing third-party tools and services that can make planning and organization easier to handle in the future.
Certain times of the year, planning and organizing may involve researching products to see what’s trending for different holidays.
And all sellers should plan how to attain (and maintain) Amazon Featured Merchant status.
Sellers should also decide whether to use FBA or MFN. And, if they use FBA, they should organize a budget and plan for shipping to Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
2. Crunch numbers and analyze them carefully
Selling is a numbers game, so if you’re not a math person, you may want to hire someone who is that you trust. Without someone to calculate and analyze your costs, prices, sales figures, and profits, you risk overspending, underpricing, and leaving money on the table.
Amazon also changes its fee structure often, and you aren’t paying close attention to how it affects your inventory and pricing, your sales and profits may suffer.
One goal should be to offer free shipping if your costs allow for it, as doing so could lead to a huge increase in sales. And, if you can speed up your shipping times on top of offering it for free, your sales have the potential to skyrocket.
Use Amazon’s FBA fee calculator to see what minimum prices you need to charge in order to profit on each SKU you list.
3. Embrace new tools and technology to streamline and automate operations
Like many sellers, you may have thought you could handle every aspect of running your Amazon store.
If you’re like the majority, though, you hit a wall after a while and realize you need help.
But that’s okay: there are plenty of tools you can use to automate your workload and make it lighter. Not only can these tools free up time from your schedule, they can also handle tasks more efficiently and effectively than you or your employees could ever do because they work non-stop.
There are plenty of Amazon selling tools you can use to automate parts of your business, from your inventory management to your feedback requests and much more. And, when you crunch the numbers and compare the cost of automation with the cost of human labor to accomplish the same work, you realize just how great a deal these tools are.
In terms of Amazon seller best practices, there’s no consensus on what order you add these tools to your arsenal. For a good place to start, consider what your biggest pain points are as an Amazon seller. Then, figure out what tools will make the biggest bottom line impact in the shortest period of time.
Many sellers opt for an automated repricing tool first to handle the management and optimization of their prices. That way, they won’t have to spend hours making manual price changes, and their prices get optimized continuously 24/7.
It’s perfect for Amazon sellers looking to eliminate a tedious and time-consuming part of running their business and, at the same time, drive their listings into the Buy Box and boost sales and profits.
Take advantage of automation tools that offer a free trial to get a feel for their functionality and power before you commit to a monthly payment.
4. Cultivate deeper relationships with customers
It’s easy to blend in with other sellers on Amazon since there aren’t many ways to stand out. But that doesn’t mean there are no ways to distinguish yourself among sellers.
If you fulfill orders yourself and run into issues with customers, keep an open line of communication with them. And, always treat customers in a friendly way to build rapport and add a human element to your business.
You should also pepper your customer communications with language and imagery that distinguishes your “brand” from other Amazon sellers. Invoices, emails, and any other customer touch points you send out should have a consistent look and feel.
That will get customers to remember you in the future. And when you’re selling the same items as many other sellers, any advantage you can get is important.
Escape Your Desk Job
Amazon Best-Seller Rank: How the Top 20% of Authors Earn 76% of All Royalties
This past week, as required by Amazon, I had to determine two categories for my latest book, “Quora Domination: How Top Writers Get 1,000,000 Views and Featured in Forbes” and decided to really dig in and figure out how the Amazon Best-Seller Rank works.
Here’s what I found…
Getting to Know Amazon Best-Seller Rank
First off, we need to understand what exactly is the Amazon Best-Seller Rank. Knowing how it works will allow us to figure out what category selection is optimal for our book.
On the surface, it’s really simple.
Each book across the entire Kindle store is given a rank upwards from one.
If you go to the sales page for your book, under “Product Details” you’ll see it:
This rank (both free and paid) is Based PURELY on unit sales, and has nothing to do with reviews and ratings.
That being said, having more reviews DOES impact the perception of your book and can lead to extra sales which in turn leads to your book moving up the rank.
Moreover, the Amazon Best-Seller Rank is Not representative of cumulative sales volume but strictly the most recent sales.
According to Amazon, the Amazon Best-seller Rank is re-calculated hourly.
Another article on WebProNews, claims that only the top 10,000 books are re-calculated hourly while books ranked 10,000+ are only re-calculated on a daily basis.
The Top 10% of Books Make Disproportionately More Sales
Next, you should understand that book sales on Amazon take a logarithmic distribution meaning the top few books account for a disproportionate amount of sales.
How disproportionate exactly?
The top 20% of authors are making 16 times as much as the bottom 80% of authors. That is, The top 20% of authors earn 76% of all royalties.
In terms of daily sales this means:
- The top 1% of books get 31% of daily sales The next 9%, 28% of daily sales The next 10%, 15% of daily sales and The final 80% of books make up the final 26% of sales.
And in terms of copies sold per day:
- Top 1% of books average 2,000 copies per day Next 9% average 200 copies per day Bottom 90% average 30 copies per day
OR to make it even more clear…
- 67 sales for the top 1% to every 6.7 sales for the next 9% to every 1 sale for the bottom 90%
Here’s what I take away from these stats…
It’s unlikely you will break into the top 1% of books, maybe not even into the top 10%.
How Best-Sellers Lists REALLY Work
When someone claims that they are an Amazon Best-Seller, don’t be fooled.
The truth of the matter is that There are hundreds of best-sellers lists on Amazon. There is one for all Kindle eBooks and there is even one for something as small as Dollhouses.
Obviously, it doesn’t take much to be a best-seller in Dollhouses!
Here’s where we start talk about selecting a category…
…because Each best-seller list corresponds to one category that you can choose.
Now, there is a balance to choosing the correct category.
Choose one that is super profitable and chances are there will be a ton of competition. This will make it harder to rank on the first page meaning less sales for your book.
Choose one that is easy to compete in and chances are it is not very profitable. You may be able to rank on the first page but what will it matter if no one is looking at that category.
The Awesome Tool I Use
What we know so far is that we want to rank on the first page for a best-seller list and to stay there we need to sell more books per hour than the 20th rank book.
You could go about checking the rank of the 20th book on each best-sellers list and then use the table below to see how many books they are selling to know where you’ll stand.
| 1 to 5 | 4,000+ |
| 5 to 20 | 3,000 – 4,000 |
| 20 to 35 | 2,000 – 3,000 |
| 35 to 200 | 500 – 2,000 |
| 200 to 350 | 250 – 350 |
| 350 to 500 | 175 – 250 |
| 500 to 750 | 120 – 175 |
| 750 to 1,500 | 100 – 120 |
| 1,500 to 3,000 | 70 – 100 |
| 3,000 to 5,500 | 25 – 70 |
| 5,500 to 10,000 | 15 – 25 |
| 10,000 to 50,000 | 5 – 15 |
| 50,000 to 100,000 | 1 |
Or you can do like I do and buy this chrome plug-in: Kindle Spy.
Here’s how it works.
How Kindle Spy Works
Let’s run through two example categories I was looking at.
I start by visiting the link above and then clicking the Kindle Spy plugin in my chrome browser.
This brings up the screen below.
In spot 20, you’ll notice the book Traction is there doing about 20 sales per day (600/30) and having a rank above 10,000.
Moreover, Kindle Spy gives you the monthly revenue for the best-seller list along with how popular and competitive the category is and how much potential it has for sales.
In my opinion, This would be a BAD category to go after because as an author without a following, you’ll have a tough time getting 20 sales per day.
This took me 30 seconds to realize this as compared to the cumbersome manual process you would have to go through otherwise.
This tool is amazing.
Let’s try another one.
Noticed how I simply dropped down one level and went more niche to see if I could rank. You can do this or choose an entirely different category, it’s up to you.
Here are the results from Kindle Spy:
This time, the 20th ranked book is only doing 5 sales per day and is sitting at around 50,000 for its Amazon Kindle Best-Seller rank.
Also, notice that the monthly revenue is way down from the previous category we looked at. That’s just the name of the game – The less competitive, the less money you can make.
This is a MUCH better category to select because I’d rather stand out than be buried deep in the rankings.
I kept doing this for multiple best-sellers list and eventually settled on two that had the perfect balance of competition to revenue potential.
So from there, I knew I had two categories that would work for my book.
There usually isn’t a way to enter these categories through the KDP dashboard so You’ll have to contact support yourself and let them know you want your book listed in your chosen categories.
Visit this link, click the “Contact Us” button on the bottom left and follow the instructions to message them to let them know about your new category request.
The Predictive Model Curve Ball
Even though recent sales are the major ranking factor, Amazon does have their own predictive features built into the Amazon Best-Seller Rank, which are likely based on historical data of a product.
So for instance, if a new book is selling well, it will move up past a book that has been on the store for 3 years even though the older book may have more cumulative sales.
Amazon can see that eventually the new book will overtake the older book in time.
This also means that if your book is way down in the rankings at 750,000 and you sell a few books, it can quickly jump to the 100,000th spot.
But as you sell more books, if becomes harder and harder to break into the next tier – 10,000th, 5,000th, etc. because Amazon predicts your sales will eventually fall off.
Wrapping Up
Here’s what this all means when it comes to selecting categories…
Having one big launch is not as important as having consistent sales over time.
This means You’ll want to do some of your own promotions to keep your book selling and then letting Amazon pick it up and keep it high in the rankings getting you organic sales.
Moreover, You will want your books page to be converting into sales at a high rate with a good description, title, benefit statements and the works – but you already knew that.
Finally, Make sure to choose the Amazon Best-Seller Rank categories that give you the greatest chance of staying ranked within the top 20 books on the list.
Amazon Sellers’ Guide: Trademark Law: Chapter 1
Amazon Sellers’ Gu >By: CJ Rosenbaum Esq., Anthony Famularo Esq., Christopher Abiuso, and Benjamin Lobley
Chapter 1: When Should a Trademark Be Pursued, and When Is it Best to Walk Away? ……….. 1
I. What is a Trademark? ……….. 1
II. Geographic Zones ……….. 7
CHAPTER 1: WHEN SHOULD A TRADEMARK BE PURSUED, AND WHEN IS IT BEST TO WALK AWAY?
I. What Is a Trademark?
Keurig. Starbucks. Barilla. McDonalds. Tide.
These five trademarks (all of them are word marks) all bestow certainty upon the goods and services associated with them–certainty in quality, standards, uses, and, indeed, even what types of goods and services may be generally expected.
• Keurig’s machines are compatible with K-cups;
• Starbucks is associated with fast and dependable service and particular, rather strong, coffee;
• Barilla sells respectable Italian pastas and sauces at a reasonable price;
• McDonalds has specific tasting burgers and fries;
• Tide will never be expected to move into producing food items.
It is important to note that these certainties do not apply directly to the goods or the services provided. While one can assume that a burger from McDonalds will take about a minute to make and will taste just about the same as the last, this is primarily because of where the burger is coming from and the standard of consistent quality which has been associated with its point of origin.
Trademarks are an old and established tradition in the realm of merchants and commerce. In fact, the earliest “trademarks” date back to 5000 B. C. in China, where pottery was stamped with the location of its creation and its manufacturer.
In ancient Egypt, craftsmen affixed unique symbols to their goods so buyers would be able to easily determine the product’s origin.
Over time, this tradition of marking goods with the symbol or signature of their point of origin expanded to encompass all of Europe, growing particularly prominent in the middle ages. King Edward I of England, in the 12th century, enacted a law which made it illegal for a jeweler to sell a piece of jewelry lacking the stamp of the royal office known as the Goldsmith’s Hall. The punishment for counterfeiting this mark was death.
Although these early proto-trademarks were not the fully-fledged trademarks of today, they fulfilled the function of preventing fraudulent products from being developed and distributed.
The modern trademark saw its first use in its earliest form in the time between the 13th and 16th centuries as the merchant mark. Trade guilds used specific marks to indicate the origin of their goods, first by bell makers and then by paper makers.
Southern v. How, an English case from 1618, is generally regarded as the earliest known court case involving trademark infringement, which came about when a low-tier clothmaker used a mark which was legally reserved for high-tier clothmakers.
Trademarks have grown so prevalent that they have seemingly come to define not just the manufacturers of goods, but products themselves. Instead of relying on what judges rule on from case to case, merchants depend on the Lanham Act, which was signed into law 1946, to offer legal armor against infringing parties, by introducing a series of laws meant to protect the sanctity of trademarks. Grocery store shelves, magazines, and television advertisements are filled to the brim with an endless stream of trademarks used by sellers to promote and sell their particular brand of product. Mentally, it has become very easy for what began as an indication of product origin to become a label for the product itself.
Thinking that a trademark defines the product is a mistake. Trademarks do not describe the goods in question. If that were the case, Apple products purchasers would be disappointed, indeed, to see a phone or laptop in their packages and not pieces of fruit. A more accurate explanation is that trademarks identify the origin of goods to consumers; in other words, they identify the Seller. All of his or her good nature, dependability, the overall quality of the goods he or she produces, and even his or her public image can be directly applied to the trademark. Any product bearing this trademark, in effect, affirms to consumers that they are guaranteed the same generalized standards of quality and care that have been demonstrated in the past by goods advertised by or labeled with such a trademark. It grants to consumers a sense of security in that the product they are purchasing will not stray too far from what they have thus far expected.
Although trademarks may seem dedicated to consumer protection, they are also fundamental to establishing the Seller’s territory of business, from geographic location, to product category, to the particular type of product, to the assurances the Seller can typically guarantee to consumers. An effective trademark is a means of identifying and separating the Seller’s goods from those of competitors, or even those who are not directly competitors but with whom association would injure the Seller’s image. Imagine, for example, the effect on the public opinion of the dog food company Alpo if another company specializing in rat poison was able to brand their products with the “ALPO” logo. Besides the obvious and distressing consequences which would befall consumers who become confused by such labeling, Alpo would also have a huge problem; they would seemingly be associated with a brand of rat poison. They would have to contend with an endless stream of questions as consumers, some of whom having potentially bought Alpo dog food before, ask them, “Are you selling rat poison now? Is there a risk of contamination with the dog food? Will your quality slip now that you are focusing on both dog food and rat poison?” Even if Alpo fielded and answered every single question with the answer that they are not associated with “ALPO,” “ALPO” will continue to sell rat poison while Alpo continues to deal with an intense identity crisis in trying to reach and educate other newly-confused consumers that Alpo is not “ALPO” and is not even associated with “ALPO.” If that last sentence confused or frustrated you, consider yourself in the shoes of a similarly confused or frustrated consumer. This is the confusion and frustration which a trademark will work to prevent.
Justice Pitney once said that trademarks “designate … goods as the product of a particular [seller] and … protect his [or her] good will against the sale of another’s product as his [or hers].”
As such, trademarks are a form of protection for not only consumers but also sellers. Without them, a Seller’s goods could easily be attributed to another individual selling similar goods. This false Seller may hijack the sweat of the Seller’s brow and abuse the good nature he or she has worked to foster. This false Seller may sell inferior goods which are then mistakenly attributed to the legitimate Seller, injuring his or her reputation. Designing and using a trademark to designate a seller’s goods as coming from that Seller and that Seller alone may therefore appear to be good idea. However, before being drafted and used, a trademark must be the first of its kind to be used; in other words, it must have priority. What’s more, it must satisfy a number of other legal requirements before its full protective power can be enjoyed.
II. Geographic Zones: When to Commit to a Trademark and When to Take a Step Back
A trademark would be worthless if any newcomer could register a mark that is similar to a mark that already exists. When a seller is deciding on a trademark to use, therefore, it is important to ensure that another existing trademark does not have priority. That is to say, the Seller’s prospective trademark must be the first in commercial use within its geographic area.
Typically, a trademark which is unregistered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) will be limited to a general geographic area where the consumer base will be able to identify the mark as representing a particular source. This geographic area is called the “zone of goodwill.” A seller’s zone of goodwill is comprised of both the zone of market penetration (regions where consumers have purchased products bearing the mark) and the zone of reputation (regions where consumers know about the seller’s products). Further, to gain trademark protection in the zone of goodwill, a Seller must demonstrate that their mark has been used in commerce by showing the volume of sales in the area, the growth trends in that area, the number of customers in relation to the number of actual customers in the area, and the advertising present within the area. A trademark that satisfies these requirements and is the first of its kind to be used in the zone of goodwill, will have legal priority over any newcomers who will be infringing on the senior patent if they decide to enter the market without priority.
Much like brick-and-mortar merchants, internet sellers who are attempting to form and use a trademark will need to worry about another trademark holding priority over theirs in the desired geographic area. Like Sellers who sell a majority of their merchandise in physical locations, internet sellers must keep in mind the market penetration and reputation of competitors and their potentially prioritized trademarks to determine what areas may be off limits for to their own trademark. Market penetration for an internet seller may be easily determined by looking at the number and distribution of total sales made by the internet Seller. Although imperfect, reputation can at least be estimated by reviewing the number of views from each geographic location the Seller would like to deploy the trademark in.
CJ’s Tip: When you’re creating a trademark for your brand, it’s always good practice to know when to put it into use and when to walk away. You shouldn’t spend too much time or effort on designing and employing a particular trademark if you know it will probably be blocked by a preexisting mark. If, after checking the area or the Gazette (discussed in later chapters), and you think it would be impossible to avoid infringing on another’s mark, it’s always easier to take a step back and redesign your mark than to cast the die and hope your trademark won’t step on any toes. If you don’t take the time to check the Gazette or the area you want to deploy your trademark in for a preexisting mark, you will probably be surprised when you receive a cease and desist order, or even worse, a legal complaint.
Reviewing the zone of goodwill of competitors before filing a trademark to avoid infringement should, of course, always be done. However, if the Seller, for whatever reason, has no plans to pursue registration of his or her trademark, it may be beneficial to perform regular checks of his or her own zone of goodwill to measure the geographic area his or her trademark covers. In this way, not only will the internet Seller avoid infringing any existing trademarks, but he or she will also be able to more readily determine his or her zone of goodwill for the purposes of protecting his or her own territory. This book will go deeper into watching and protecting a trademark from infringement in chapter 8.
In addition to the above, also of importance in determining the geographic zone in which to deploy one’s trademark, is the predicted zone of expansion for the business. This zone of expansion can be determined by first looking at whether the owner of the mark holds a valid trademark. Next an observer should evaluate: the physical distance from the trademark user’s location to the perimeter of the claimed zone; the business and size of the market; the history of expansion and estimation of when the user could reach the zone in question; and whether the expansion into the zone would be the next probable step for the business’s expansion. Because of the widespread nature of the internet, it has been noted that the zone of expansion for internet sellers may in fact be larger and quicker to grow. This is because the internet is available to so many people at once and it would be easier to assume that the internet seller will be able to expand to a larger number of people than a brick-and-mortar store.
Anthony’s Breakdown: When dealing with trademark priority issues, you may come across the concept of tacking. Tacking is where a party “tacks” or “saves” the date of the original mark onto a subsequent mark for purposes of establishing priority. However, the two marks must be so similar that consumers would typically regard them as the same. For example, if McDonald’s started a subsequent business under the mark “McRonald’s” as a cardiologist office to fix the hearts of people who eat too many Big Mac’s, they would be able to tack the new mark to the date they registered “McDonald’s” for trademark. This is because the marks are so similar that any average person would recognize the subsequent mark as part of McDonald’s business. This is a fairly advanced and rare concept to deal with, but it may come in handy to know if you ever want to draft a new trademark and don’t want to start fresh with its priority.
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