Italy'S Fashion Counterfeit Market Is Booming.

Data show that during the many actions from January 2018 to May 2019, the Italy economic police (hereinafter referred to as Gdf, the full name Guardia di Finanza) seized more than 74 million 400 thousand fashion counterfeit products. Compared with the same period last year, this figure has increased significantly (+6800 million).

This shows that the scale of counterfeit goods in the fashion industry is no sign of diminishing as an illegal business. The latest data from the Italy Customs police (FIAMME GIALLE) to Italy's "24 hours Sun" show that clothing accessories account for most of the counterfeit products in Italy: 43 million 400 thousand items were seized in 17 months during the Gdf investigation. In addition, the top categories include textiles (12 million pieces), footwear (8 million 800 thousand pieces) and counterfeit clothing labels (3 million 200 thousand pieces), as well as buttons, buckles and pin buckles, with 2 million 400 thousand seizures.

This data shows that Italy has become a big producer of counterfeit products, such as counterfeit symbolic details (such as buttons) and labels on counterfeit clothing products. These excipients are usually imported from other countries, such as China, Albania, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Fake products on online platforms and social networks

In addition to the issue of counterfeit manufacturing, the focus of anti-counterfeiting staff is also on the sales terminals for end users. Now, Gdf has focused its attention on online sales. During this period, Gdf has closed up 230 websites, but not just for fashion, and how they have changed the market for counterfeit goods.

In fact, e-commerce is playing a leading role in changing the market of counterfeit goods: if in the past, people who wanted to buy fake had to go to some underground trading places (from street vendors to private apartments), online shopping today made them all right.

On the contrary, fake products are often presented in social media. According to the report of research company Ghost data Instagram and counterfeit 2019, about 20% of Instagram's Posts contain fashion products, including counterfeit products, and 50 thousand accounts for fake products sold. In the same report issued in 2016, this figure was only 20 thousand. On the one hand, these accounts make genuine consumers confused. They do not want to buy fake goods but are misled by preferential prices. On the other hand, they also provide a platform for those who are interested in buying fake goods.

Us to crack down on counterfeit market

In the United States, the struggle against counterfeit goods is in progress. The Republican and democratic representatives jointly proposed a bill called "Shop Safe Act 2020" (safe shopping in 2020), which will be used to punish the platform trading market which represents the third party selling fake products. The platform trading market itself (from Amazon to Alibaba) also tries to avoid such transactions by investigating the transparency of retailers and reporting false sellers to the authorities.

In a report released in late January, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made a thorough study of the fake market in the United States. Data show that fashion products are the most common counterfeit product category in the United States: 58 products belonging to this category were seized by the US Customs and Border Protection Agency (Cbp) in 2018. Specifically, 18% for clothing and accessories, 14% for shoes, 13% for watches and jewelry, 11% for bags and wallets.

Z generation is keen to buy sophisticated counterfeit products.

In a 2019 report released by the International Trade Association, 80% of the 4500 Z generation adolescents from 10 different countries (born between 1995 and 2010) admitted that they had purchased counterfeit products (60% of which were surveyed in Italy, and only 25% said they would reduce purchases in the future). But more importantly, from the perspective of quality and cost performance, 56% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the counterfeit products purchased.