IAF Working to Allow Sale of ISO Certificates in Bulk… on Amazon

Even someone like me, who spends much of his day’s headspace inside the ISO and IAF corruption machine, was shocked by this one.

The people behind IAF Certsearch are working on a harebrained scheme to further commoditize ISO certifications by partnering with Amazon to offer them in bulk, at discounted rates. Strap in for this.

If you recall, CertSearch is owned by an IAF sister company, IAF Database LLC, which then hired the Australian body QualityTrade to develop and manage it. QualityTrade had previously been working on UKAS’ equivalent, CertCheck; essentially, the two systems are the same code, showing IAF giving preference to one of its clients — UKAS — over all others.

QualityTrade runs the entire thing as a commercial business enterprise and gets paid more money when more companies use CertSearch. So, with QualityTrade in the mix, all pretense of ISO certifications being a thing to “improve trade” is thrown out the window.

The “Hi Certification Body” Email

Alain Traechslin, the Senior Product Manager of QualityTrade, recently sent an email around announcing a deal with Amazon that defies belief and invites certification bodies to inject themselves into overt, incontrovertible violations of ISO 17021-1. In his email, he solicits CBs from (initially) Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the UK, to participate in this very weird project. Here’s the full email from Traechslin, so I won’t bungle the paraphrasing:

De : Alain Traechslin <alain.traechslin@iafcertsearch.org>
Date: mar. 6 janv. 2026 à 06:18
Subject: Amazon supplier certification initiative. Call for interest within 14 days
To: Alain Traechslin <alain.traechslin@iafcertsearch.org>

Hi Certification Body,

IAF CertSearch is supporting Amazon with a proof of concept to help verify the authenticity of supplier certificates and increase the share of Amazon sellers holding accredited management system certifications.

Amazon’s objective

• • Amazon has both accredited and unaccredited certificates in their supplier base. They want a higher proportion of suppliers (European B2B marketplace) certified with accredited certificates.
  • In the European B2B marketplace, Amazon has roughly 300,000 sellers, and the majority are not certified today.
  • Amazon aims to increase certified sellers from about ~15% to above 30%, with an initial focus on getting more companies certified in Q1 2026

Scope of the Initiative

• • Standards: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and ISO/IEC 27001.
  • Geographies: Primary focus on DE, ES, FR, GB, IT & potentially CN (to cover production facilities for these sellers).
  • Integration: Connecting interested sellers to accredited Certification Bodies that fully participate in IAF CertSearch, so certificates can be verified reliably by Amazon (including via API-based checks where applicable).
  • Incentivisation: To drive this mass-adoption, Amazon is seeking “Preferred CB Partners” who can offer competitive, preferred pricing models for Amazon-referred sellers

How this will work

• • Amazon will ultimately decide which CBs to recommend or prioritize. We, IAF CertSearch are facilitating the connection between Amazon and interested CBs.
  • If the proof of concept is successful in Europe, there is potential to extend this approach to the United States, where Amazon has approximately 1 million sellers.
  • This is a great chance to increase overall numbers of certified companies and give accredited certifications additional legitimacy 

Call for interest (response requested within 14 days)
If you are interested in participating, please reply within 14 days and include:

1. 1. The geographies you can cover (DE, ES, FR, GB, IT and possibly CN since some of those companies have their production facilities in China).
   2. The standards in scope you can deliver (9001, 14001, 45001, 27001)
   3. Capacity and indicative lead times to onboard and certify sellers and at which volume.  
   4. Whether you can offer a preferred pricing or discount model for Amazon-referred sellers (high-level is fine at this stage).
   5. A primary contact person for commercial and operational follow-up.

If helpful, we can arrange a short call to discuss the proof of concept structure and next steps.

Kind regards,
Alain Traechslin
IAF CertSearch

 And here’s a shot of it, in case you think I might have made this up. (Click to enlarge)

How is this selling ISO certificates in bulk on Amazon, as I suggest?

First, there’s this bit: it intends on “connecting interested sellers to accredited Certification Bodies” — but only those that Amazon approves. That means Amazon will be either directly or indirectly selling ISO certificates, through its “approved” CBs.

Then, there’s this part: that in order to get approved by Amazon, you have to offer them a “preferred pricing models for Amazon-referred sellers.” And finally, that interested CBs need to provide promises on how they can “certify sellers and at which volume.”

This Has QualityTrade’s Fingerprints All Over It

There’s no way Amazon came up with this scam on its own, so for sure, IAF and/or QualityTrade approached them with it. Reading between the lines, if Amazon were working on adding an API call to CertSearch, allowing shoppers to verify a manufacturer’s certification right on the Amazon website, this means they were in discussions with QualityTrade and IAF about the costs and technical aspects of doing so. It seems logical, then, that QualityTrade got greedy and proposed inviting CBs to violate ISO 17021-1 and offer Amazon bulk discounts in order to get approved by Amazon.

Notice, too, that interested CBs are invited to arrange a call with Traechslin, not Amazon, to “discuss the proof of concept structure and next steps.”

I wonder if Amazon even knows this email was sent out with their name on it?

But is this a violation? Well, here is what the accreditation standard, ISO 17021-1, says about these things:

5.2.11 The certification body shall take action to respond to any threats to its impartiality arising from the actions of other persons, bodies or organizations.

5.2.12 All certification body personnel, either internal or external, or committees, who could influence the certification activities, shall act impartially and shall not allow commercial, financial or other pressures to compromise impartiality.

The demand for price breaks and (suggested) faster turnaround on certificates, while dangling the entire Amazon supply chain in front of CBs, most certainly adds “commercial, financial or other pressures” that can compromise impartiality. The CBs should not only reject the project, but “take action to respond” to the threat of impartiality by banning themselves from participating, and alerting QualityTrade and IAF that they’ve lost their goddamned minds.

I also want to point out that this email was sent just a few hours ago, on January 6th, 2026, and Traechslin gives interested CBs “fourteen days” to respond if interested. That puts us into the fourth week of January, more or less, while Traechslin  then says the goal is to “getting more companies certified in Q1 2026.” Well, the first quarter ends on March 31st, so that only gives CBs two months (February and March) to not only get onboarded, but start certifying Amazon suppliers in bulk. The math isn’t mathing, unless the CBs engage in a massive rubber-stamping and certificate-printing campaign. Which, so long as the certs get listed in CertSearch, means Traechslin gets his bonus, and it’s not like IAF is going to stop them.

How It Might Have Worked

There were a few ways IAF and Amazon could have run a project like this without all the money-grabbing. First, Amazon could simply add a badge on each seller’s page that indicates if they are ISO certified or not, and for which certificates they hold. That badge could link to their CertSearch API call feature, so people don’t leave Amazon to visit CertSearch. The badge, tied to CertSearch, might even “disappear” if the certificate was withdrawn or suspended. That’s it.

No Amazon approval of CBs. No bulk pricing or promises of certification “at volume.” No dangling a huge pot of potential clients as a financial incentive. No ham-handed injection of QualityTrade into this thing at all.

But that’s not where they went.

This will result in desperate CBs offering discounts to companies, thereby cutting audit time short and lowering auditor pay, both of which will reduce the trust in the resulting certificates. Furthermore, any CB signing up for this will be unlikely to ever de-certify one of the Amazon-referred sellers, no matter how bad their products are, since it would put them at risk for being de-listed by Amazon and losing access to, as Traechslin says, “roughly 300,000 sellers.”

No one will believe that this plot by Traechslin is intended, as he says, to “give accredited certifications additional legitimacy.” This erodes legitimacy and further converts ISO certifications into a commodity rather than a serious, thoughtful, and objective assessment result.

I see QualityTrade thinks China might go along with this. Given the Chinese government’s recent moves to crack down on this very type of “bulk certification” work, I can’t see how China will agree.