Birkenstock to Walk Away From Amazon

Starting Jan. 1, Birkenstock will stop supplying products to Amazon.com in the U.S. and will no longer authorize third-party merchants to sell on the site. In a memo to Birkenstock retail partners, USA CEO David Kahan cites counterfeits and unauthorized selling for the decision. This means any Birkenstock product on Amazon after the first of the year will, in fact, be fake.

Total Retail’s Take: Many brands are struggling with counterfeits on Amazon because Chinese merchants have been flooding the site over the past few years. A quick search on Amazon shows results for Birkenstock shoes priced as low as $18.99 — $50 below what the same shoes go for on Birkenstock’s website. That adds up to a large amount of lost revenue and unhappy customers who bought fake items thinking they were the real deal. Let’s see if Birkenstock prospers without Amazon, leading the way for other retailers dealing with the same counterfeit issues on the marketplace.