Corsearch, brandsec’s brand protection partner, conducted a recent survey of major global fashion brands looking at counterfeits, trademark infringement, and COVID-19 — here’s a summary of the results.
- Online marketplaces continue to pose the greatest threat to fashion brands.
- Some respondents see Southeast Asian ecommerce platforms such as Tokopedia as more of a risk than Amazon or eBay.
- 66% of fashion brand respondents invested more in online brand protection during 2020.
- 100% of fashion brands surveyed believe that marketplaces, social media companies, and Internet infrastructure providers do not do enough to protect against counterfeiting and other forms of infringement.
The consensus is that APAC is the leading region of concern and where brands feel is the biggest source of counterfeiters, with new platforms in Indonesia popping up that coupled with the China threat is changing the regional threat landscape. Marketplaces are still the biggest concern but social media is growing in terms of counterfeiting activity with facebook being the most concerning social media channel for counterfeits.
Which region do you think will pose the greatest threat to brands in your industry in the next five years?
- APAC 67%
- Europe 8%
- Middle East 17%
- Africa 8%
Insight: Asia Pacific remains the key area of concern for our fashion clients. As the engine of counterfeit manufacturing, they do not see this situation changing in the next five years. Some respondents also cited Europe, Africa, and the Middle East as areas of growing concern.
Which online channels do you think will pose the biggest risk for your industry in the next two or three years?
- Marketplaces 50%
- Social Media 25%
- Social Commerce 25%
Insight: Social media is clearly a growing concern for our fashion clients, but marketplaces remain the platform they will continue to watch most closely in coming years. This appears to stem both from the threat of new platforms, but also from the inability of existing marketplaces to effectively control sellers.
Which social media channel represents the biggest brand protection challenge in terms of counterfeits and trademark infringement for your brand?
- Facebook 59%
- Instagram 33%
- All of them 8%
Insight: When asked which of the major social media channels posed a threat to fashion brands, nearly 60% cited Facebook, while the remainder focused on Instagram and, once again, all of them!
About brandsec
Brandsec is a corporate domain name management and brand protection company that looks after many of Australia, New Zealand and Asia’s top publicly listed brands. We provide monitoring and enforcement services, DNS, SSL Management, domain name brokerage and dispute management and brand security consultation services. See our steps on dealing with counterfeiters here.