“I don’t think we ever invented a smarter weapon in the fight against counterfeit.”
— Angela Cearns, CEO – TrueTwins
Business of Fashion highlights how the COVID19 pandemic has provoked a major uptake of the counterfeit industry and pointing out that counterfeit products are now increasingly rife on up-and-coming e-commerce players. Part of the explanation is the rapid increase in online sales (a channel that makes it easier for counterfeiters to sell their wares) and consumer belt-tightening measures that make the lower-priced counterfeit products more attractive.
The article points out that counterfeit products become “a reputation issue for the authentic brands”, and though accurate numbers are difficult to come by given the underground nature of the worldwide trade in counterfeit goods, estimates have valued the segment as accounting for $1.7 trillion in annual sales, with a whopping 80 percent of counterfeit products (for fashion, luxury and beauty as well as a great many other categories) coming from China. However, the ongoing offshoring of apparel and footwear manufacturing from China means that the explosion of fake goods since the pandemic broke out is not just a China problem.
The high-tech counterfeits came complete with NFC (near-field-communication) microchips embedded; and when scanned, the customer would be redirected to the true brand’s official website.
TrueTwins CEO, Angela Cearns, points out that this seems to indicate that many counterfeits are grey market items, made in the same factory with the same embedded chips:
“So verifying authenticity and tracking ownership is essential. This is what we do with True Twins Digital Passport now being implemented in several luxury and fashion brands. I don’t think we ever invented a smarter weapon in the fight against counterfeit.”