3 Key Ways Luxury Brands Can Fight China's Online Counterfeits

This article was published earlier in our weekly newsletter. Sign up through our “Newsletter Sign Up” box on the right. While fake luxury goods have been causing a headache for brands across the world for decades, they’ve been especially problematic in China, where both cheap knockoffs and high-quality imposter items are easily available. This problem certainly hasn't gotten any better as the country’s e-commerce market has taken off, bringing not only growth opportunities for legitimate brands, but also a wider available of counterfeit items than ever. Jing Daily’s new report released this week, “ China’s Online Gray Market and Counterfeits ,” looks at the main causes and effects of the rampant proliferation of counterfeit luxury goods online in China based on experts’ analysis. In addition, it provides advice for brands on the best ways to respond to China’s massive online counterfeit boom. Below are a few things brands can do to hit back at online counterfeiters: Detect and track. Before brands can create a strategy to fight fakes, they first have to know what they’re up against. Comprehensive data collection on counterfeit sellers on Chinese online platforms is crucial for responding effectively. Take a multi-platform approach. While many luxury brands are currently focusing their energies almost exclusively on e-commerce giants Taobao and Tmall when it comes to sales of counterfeits, China’s online fakes market is actually rampant across a wide range of platforms. This includes not only Chinese e-commerce sites, but social media as well. Respond rapidly. Many Chinese e-commerce and social platforms, including Alibaba’s sites, have been developing takedown mechanisms to allow brands to report fakes. In order to prove effective, brands need to be able to report counterfeits for takedown rapidly enough to deter sellers—meaning both the platform’s reporting mechanism and the brand’s response time have to be adequate. These are just three of several important steps brands can take to tackle this pressing issue, which also calls for a response to the online gray market—which is becoming increasingly connected to the online sale of counterfeits. To learn about these strategies in deeper detail and read additional advice on how to respond to both the online sale of counterfeits and gray-market items in China, click here to download our new report.

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3 Key Ways Luxury Brands Can Fight China's Online Counterfeits