Are you a Brand Owner Struggling to Save Your Brand’s Image From Counterfeit Products?

Counterfeiting threats are real. Brands in all industry sectors, from apparel to health, beauty and electronics, are grappling with questions on how to ensure that their brand value is not undermined by scammers selling fake copies of their goods in the real market-space.

As per a recent report by Authentication Solution Provider’s Association (ASPA), counterfeiting incidents have risen steadily in the last few years and in 2019, these have increased by 24% as compared to 2018. Highest number of cases have been reported in currency, FMCG, alcohol, pharma, documents, agriculture, infrastructure, automotive, tobacco, lifestyle and apparel sectors. Among these, the FMCG sector is most vulnerable as counterfeit incidents in the sector increased by 63%.

Today counterfeiting has become a global industry, threatening the safety of the public and eroding consumer confidence in brands and destroying their reputation.

Problems associated with counterfeiting

Falsified products, especially belonging to healthcare, can have serious adverse effects on the wellbeing of a person. For example, if a person purchases a fake skincare product though the packaging and substance may look similar to the authentic brand but can cause skin infections and rashes when applied.

These consequences, when blown out of proportion using the power of instant communication through social media channels, is likely to damage the brand’s reputation and in turn affect consumer trust and hence sales. Customers are generally unaware that the product they bought is falsified, adds to it.

Secondly, there is also a business hazard of counterfeit goods, as this contributes to a loss of revenue for manufacturers. With the advent of technology and emergence of e-commerce portals, exact product packaging can be duplicated, making it even more difficult to catch counterfeit with the bare eye or on online portals. What’s real and what is fake has become very difficult and the lines become very blurred.

Need for an effective product traceability to stop counterfeiting

This is more critical than ever for brands to protect themselves and ensure that their brand values are not compromised by counterfeit products and gain consumers’ trust.

Traceability technology provides a tool to brands owners to keep themselves one step ahead in combating counterfeiting of products. Brand owners can easily locate the entire batch of their products or any single product from the batch in the supply chain, with an effective traceability system and can take corrective action whenever needed or required which helps in detecting counterfeiting at any level of the supply chain process.

Traceability refers to the organization’s ability to identify, track n trace elements of a product/consignment as it moves along the supply chain from raw goods to finished products.

To prevent counterfeiting of products, GS1 India offers a global standards based traceability service that enables brand owners to easily track and trace their products right through the journey from origin to the point of its sale and consumption. Effective end-to-end traceability service not only helps them to respond to the problems immediately but also anticipate and prevent problems effectively. It helps them to secure data in real-time which further helps to reduce the risk of counterfeiting when products are still in transit.

Learn more about GS1 Traceability Service.

A core component for this is product identification. This can be done by using barcodes/ serialised barcodes on product labels. To know more and register for unique product identification numbers, visit: https://support.gs1india.org/barcode_registration_1

Realising the magnitude of damage caused by counterfeiting to the Indian economy, brands and consumers, Authentication Solutions Providers’ Association (ASPA) and GS1 India have joined hands and signed MOU to take the fight against counterfeiting to the next level in India, using global standards.

To avail the benefits of GS1 India’s Traceability service for a transparent supply chain process, visit us at: https://support.gs1india.org/traceability-service-consultation

Counterfeit: Detect Early, Prevent Easily with Traceability

According to the Global Brand Counterfeiting Report 2018, the amount of total counterfeiting in the global market had reached 1.2 Trillion USD in the year 2017 and was projected to reach 1.82 Trillion USD by 2020. You will be alarmed to know that even a country’s most crucial Defence products and equipment are counterfeited, let alone luxury goods and other high value items.

The same 2018 report also says that the online counterfeiting led to 323 Billion USD loss in the year 2017. If you are alarmed by the above-mentioned facts, then this article will throw some detailed light into and how can one curb counterfeiting.

What is Counterfeit?

Counterfeit is a burning issue in the world economic framework. But before we move forth, let’s understand what is counterfeit all about. Counterfeit products mean nothing but the presence of spurious products in the market. This is one of the biggest threats to the existing brand names.

People prefer picking up brands because brands provide higher quality of products and the value attached to the brand.

With upgraded technology, it has become easier to copy any brand with ease. The counterfeiting industry is expanding at such a pace that it is now a trillion-dollar threat to any business and or any brand.

Problems caused by counterfeiting

  • Loss of sales revenue and profit margin: With the influx of cheap and exact replica of the real products, people fall for the same. The cheap price and easy availability of the same being the reasons, the existing original brands or businesses start losing on sales revenue and thus face a deficit a profit margin.
  • Fraudulent product warranty claims: With fraudulent products comes fraudulent claims. The counterfeit products for obvious reasons are availed to the consumers at comparatively much cheaper rates because of the usage of compromised quality materials and poor-quality treatment. Thus, their longevity also gets compromised.
  • Product liability claims: With counterfeiting comes no product liability claim. So, in case you encounter defective or damaged products. Or not getting adequate warnings or instructions regarding the product, or even the warranty, you do not have the option to the complaint and seek for the product liability claims. The reason being is that you cannot trace the origin of the counterfeit product. Traceability is a big problem with counterfeits.
  • Damage of brand and product reputation: A common user cannot distinguish between original stuff and a counterfeited one. For him, a replica seems to be the original one. But when replicated products do not live up to the quality of the brand, the brand, and the product’s image get hampered. And most importantly, the customer’s faith in the brand gets shaken. Thus, the customer’s trust focus shifts from the existing brand to some other brand.

How does Traceability help?

With the intrusion of fake goods in the market, traceability can only help survive brands or even small-scale businesses. Traceability varies from product to product. Traceability is divided into two major segments; one is unit traceability and the other one is batch traceability. Unit traceability allows tracing of every single unit and batch traceability allows tracing of the entire batch. Every original brand, business, and the product uses a barcode on its product.

With Traceability system in place, brand owners can locate the entire batch of the product or any single product from the batch, from the supply chain and can take corrective measures if needed. GS1’s traceability provides a solution to such business problems. For more information, visit https://gs1india.org/content/traceability

Source: https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4438394/global-brand-counterfeiting-report-2018
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