• Amazon announced yesterday that it has joined with YETI Coolers to file a lawsuit "against two US-based individuals … for counterfeiting YETI’s products, including YETI’s popular Rambler mug. The defendants attempted to offer the infringing products in Amazon’s store, violating Amazon’s policies, YETI’s intellectual property rights, and the law."
The suit "alleges the defendants, Michael White and Karen White of San Diego, California, operated in concert with each other in their attempts to sell counterfeit YETI products. Amazon closed their selling accounts and refunded impacted customers."
The press release notes that "Amazon strictly prohibits counterfeit products in its stores, and in 2019 alone, invested more than $500 million to protect customers and brands from fraud and abuse, including counterfeit."
• E-commerce company Wayfair is ending its brief flirtation with the bricks-and-mortar world. For the moment.
The Boston Globe reports that Wayfair "is shutting down its only standalone store, located in the Natick Mall, on Dec. 31. Wayfair opened it in 2019 as a way to test the waters for a broader brick-and-mortar strategy."
However, spokesperson Jane Carpenter tells the Globe that "Wayfair considers the store to be a success … The store whetted the appetite among visitors for the company’s broader online catalog, she said, adding that management learned lessons about how physical stores can help it build personal relationships with shoppers … Carpenter said Wayfair will inevitably give physical stores another go in the future, but probably in a larger space."
