Amanda Schmutzler
Express Counterfeit Removal
A guided, self-serve claim flow that lets Walmart Marketplace brand owners search the catalog and report counterfeit listings across multiple sellers in one pass, instead of filing separate claims one listing at a time.
- Problem: the existing claims form only handled one counterfeit listing at a time, too slow against catalogs with dozens of look-alikes.
- Approach: a guided, five-step batch claim wizard, gated behind an access quiz for qualified high-stake sellers.
- Process: sat with Trust & Safety and audited claims data first, then designed the wizard and the access gate together.
- Impact: resolution time dropped sharply versus the standard multi-day process, cutting off counterfeit sales sooner.
Introduction
Counterfeit listings were a persistent problem on Walmart Marketplace — sellers offering knockoff versions of a brand's product alongside the genuine item. Brand owners could already file a claim to have one removed through Brand Portal, but it moved one listing at a time and could take days to resolve — too slow against catalogs with dozens of look-alike listings at once.
Express Counterfeit Removal is a guided, batch-oriented claim wizard built directly into the catalog search experience, so a qualified brand owner can find, select, and report multiple suspected-counterfeit listings in a single pass.
Research & discovery
Before any wireframe, the work was understanding where the existing claims process actually broke down — not just that it was slow, but why, and for which sellers it was slow in a way that mattered most.
Watched the team resolve claims manually and saw where a one-listing-at-a-time form created pure rework — the same seller, the same brand, resubmitted again and again for near-identical listings.
Looked at claims data to find the pattern: a small group of high-stake brand owners were filing the same claim type against the same repeat sellers, at a volume the single-listing form was never built to handle.
Heard directly from brand-protection teams tracking dozens of counterfeit listings at once — for them the bottleneck wasn't getting approved, it was how many separate forms they had to file to report what they'd already found.
Process
A standard end-to-end design process, adapted for a tool that needed real guardrails built in from day one — not bolted on after the fact once the faster path was already live.
Research
Sat with Trust & Safety and reviewed claims data to find where the one-at-a-time process broke down, and for whom.
Define
Framed it as two linked problems: faster batch reporting for trusted brand owners, and a gate that kept that speed from being abused.
Design
Designed the five-step wizard and the access-qualification gate side by side, so speed and guardrails shipped as one system.
Validate
Reviewed the flow with Trust & Safety and Brand Protection to pressure-test the guardrails against real misuse scenarios.
Ship
Handed off flows and the qualification-gate logic to engineering, then supported edge cases as sellers came online.
Inside the five-step wizard
The wizard itself walks a qualified brand owner from catalog search to a submitted claim, built to keep each step focused and the batch of flagged items visible throughout.
Brand
Confirm which of the brand owner's registered marks this claim covers.
Items
Search the Walmart catalog and select up to 10 suspected-counterfeit listings.
Sellers
Review the sellers behind the flagged listings before the claim moves forward.
Claim information
Supply the supporting details Trust & Safety needs to evaluate the claim.
Review
Confirm brand, items, and sellers together before submitting.
Step one, Brand — the sidebar previews all five steps up front, so nothing feels like a surprise partway through.
Controlled access
Because Express Counterfeit Removal resolves so much faster than the standard claims process, it isn't switched on for every seller by default — it's reserved for high-stake sellers whose volume and track record made them a good fit for the faster path.
A qualifying brand owner requests access from their Claims dashboard, then has to pass a short quiz demonstrating they understand the rules for how the tool should be used before it unlocks; access is revocable if those rules aren't followed.
Requesting access from the Claims dashboard.
A short quiz gates activation.
Passing unlocks the tool.
Because it resolves so much faster than a manually reviewed claim, the fast path is also the one most exposed to abuse — so it only unlocks for sellers whose volume and track record already made them a good fit for less oversight per claim.
A checkbox only proves someone clicked it. The quiz is a light comprehension check — it makes a seller demonstrate they actually understand what the tool is for before the faster path opens up.
Qualifying isn't permanent. Access is tied to continuing to use the tool the way it was scoped for, and can be pulled if that changes — the gate isn't just a one-time hurdle.
What the tool tells a seller up front
The instructions a brand owner has to read before using the tool spell out the guardrails in plain terms: removal happens within two hours of submission, the reported seller is notified and can submit a counter-claim, a removed item can be republished if that counter-claim holds up, and access is revoked if accuracy slips.
None of that is buried in a legal doc — it's the first thing a qualifying seller sees.
The problem, and the approach
What made the old one-listing-at-a-time process slow, and how the new flow fixed each part.
Problems
- The existing claims form handled one listing at a time, which didn't scale against catalogs with many look-alike listings
- Brand owners had no way to search the live catalog and act on results in the same flow
- Sellers behind a flagged listing weren't surfaced until late in the process, making it hard to catch mistakes early
- There was no dedicated review step, so claims could be submitted before a brand owner double-checked what they'd selected
- Resolving a claim also relied on Walmart's own Trust & Safety team working each case manually with the seller, and counterfeit sellers kept making sales the whole time a claim was in that queue
Solutions
- Catalog search built into the flow: brand owners search Walmart's live catalog and select suspected listings without leaving the claim wizard.
- Batch selection, up to 10 items: one claim now covers a batch of related listings instead of one form per listing.
- Sellers surfaced early: a dedicated step shows which sellers are tied to the selected items before the claim moves further.
- A review step before submission: brand, items, and sellers are shown together for a final check before anything is filed.
- Less manual back-and-forth: a faster, guided path for qualified sellers means less manual handling on Walmart's side and less time counterfeit listings stay live making sales.
The flow, before and after
Laying the two paths side by side shows what actually changed: the standard claim stayed manual and slow end to end, while the new path swaps that for a qualification gate up front and a guided, automated flow behind it.
Searching the catalog
Step two of the wizard: a brand owner searches the Walmart catalog by keyword and selects up to 10 items to include in the claim, with item ID, price, and rating shown alongside each result to help confirm a match.
Click to enlarge.
Every matching result stays visible and scrollable — nothing is pre-filtered out of view.
Picks are highlighted and counted live, with a one-click way to clear the batch and start over.
Results can be narrowed by average customer rating without leaving the search.
A sticky summary banner tracks the count as picks are made.
Trying to move on without a selection surfaces the same inline error pattern used across the wizard.
Step three — sellers, one item at a time
Every selected item routes through its own seller decision: remove the entire listing, or remove only the specific sellers behind the counterfeit stock. A running tray of everything added to the claim stays one click away throughout.
Item details and the sellers behind it sit side by side, so the choice is never made blind.
The full batch is always reachable from the "Added items" tray, with a quick way to remove any one of them.
Removing the whole listing at once.
Or targeting specific sellers instead.
A header checkbox selects every seller at once.
Neither option chosen yet — the step won't advance until one is.
"Remove individual sellers" chosen, but no seller checked yet —
same pattern, one level deeper.
Step four — claim information
Once every item's seller decision is made, the brand owner supplies the details Trust & Safety needs to evaluate the whole batch: trademark number, reason, optional order numbers per item, supporting proof, comments, three sign-off statements, and a typed digital signature.
Every selected item gets its own optional order-number field, without leaving the same screen.
A full validation pass, field by field — including the legal sign-off statements, which can't be skipped.
Submitted, and tracked from the same dashboard
Once a claim clears review and submission, it drops straight into the same Claims dashboard the brand owner started from — no separate tool to check back in, and status updates (accepted, in progress, rejected, info needed) show up right in the list.
Confirmation lands right where the claim will be tracked, not on a dead-end success page.
A few decisions worth explaining
None of these choices were arbitrary — each one came out of a specific tension between moving fast and keeping the process trustworthy.
Why cap it at 10 items
A higher cap would have made each claim faster to file, but harder for Trust & Safety to meaningfully review. Ten was set as the batch size that still let a reviewer actually look at what was being reported, not just rubber-stamp a wall of items.
Why sellers get their own step
Sellers could have simply been shown alongside each item. Giving them a dedicated step instead means a brand owner sees exactly who they're reporting before the claim moves forward — catching a mistaken match early instead of after submission.
Why review is separate from selection
Selecting items and reviewing the claim could have been the same screen. Splitting them out means there's one deliberate last look at brand, items, and sellers together — because a batch process makes batch mistakes possible, too.
Why a guided wizard, not a bulk-upload form
A faster route for trusted sellers could easily have meant a raw upload form. It's a guided wizard instead, so even a seller moving quickly is walked through the same steps every time — nothing skipped in the name of speed.
Validation that doesn't waste a trip
A generic "something went wrong" banner would have been faster to build, but it leaves a brand owner guessing. Required-field errors instead show up right where the problem is — brand name required, right under the brand field — the moment the form is submitted, not buried in a summary at the top.
Cross-functional partners
How the wizard's design held up against what Trust & Safety, Brand Protection, and Engineering each needed to be true.
Working with Trust & Safety
The wizard's five steps were built around how Trust & Safety already evaluated a claim, not around a new process they'd have to learn — so a faster path for brand owners didn't mean a lower bar for what got approved, just less manual back-and-forth to get a claim in front of a reviewer.
Working with Brand Protection & Engineering
Partnered with Brand Protection on what belonged in the usage-rules quiz and when access should be revocable, and with engineering on how qualifying sellers actually got surfaced from claims data in the first place — the access gate only works if the data behind it is right.
Impact
Express Counterfeit Removal gives qualified brand owners a single guided path to search, batch-select, and report counterfeit listings — replacing a slower, one-listing-at-a-time claims process with the same review rigor Trust & Safety requires, at the pace a real catalog actually demands.
For the high-stake sellers using it, resolution time dropped sharply against the standard multi-day process, cutting off sales of counterfeit product faster from sellers a brand never authorized to carry it in the first place.
Just as importantly, Trust & Safety picked up a qualification model — the access quiz and revocable-access pattern — that keeps a faster path from becoming a weaker one.
Why I gravitate toward this kind of work
This project shipped because it balanced two things that usually pull against each other: real speed for the people who've earned it, and real guardrails against the people who haven't.
I like problems shaped that way — where the interesting design work isn't just the happy path, it's negotiating with Trust & Safety and Brand Protection on where the line actually needs to sit, and then designing something that holds that line without slowing everyone else down.
Why bring me onto your team
I can walk into a process that's slow for a good reason — real risk, real review requirements — and find where it can move faster without giving any of that up. That takes more than good screens: it takes sitting with the team who owns the risk, understanding exactly what they need to keep doing their job, and designing guardrails they'll actually trust.
If your team is weighing speed against risk on something that matters, I'd like to help you get that balance right.
"Amanda had a good grip on the resources that were available to our greater team and how they could advance our initiatives — I could trust her to flex her depth of contribution and manage the timelines and speed needed for a fast-moving team."
