Counterfeit goods are experiencing a rise of demand amongst consumers around the world wanting branded products with a cheaper price tag. The worth of fake products has reached 3.3% of the whole global online retail, says The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union’s intellectual property office (EUIPO) report.
According to “Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact” research the value of counterfeit goods makes up $590bn (£384.4bn) a year. That’s 3.3% of the whole international online trade in 2016, up from 2.5% ($461bn) in 2013.
The report says that the goods that are most likely to suffer from counterfeit imports are watches, leather and headgear products, footwear, perfumery and cosmetics, toys as well as clothing, tobacco and metal-based equipment.
It also points to the increasing trend of fraudsters using smaller packages to ship counterfeit goods to consumers across the world – the move from larger deliveries to small ones also suggests that those goods are less likely to be seen as suspicious when crossing borders.
The study says that China is the largest exporter of counterfeit and pirated products in the world. The country is the top producer of fraudulent items such as footwear, with 27% of all fake goods could be traced back to the country. Turkey, New Zealand, Syria, Greece, Nepal, Tunisia, Armenia, Yemen and Morocco follow the list of world’s economies that source infringing goods.
We have reported yesterday that not only consumers but also merchants get caught in a manipulation game when ordering goods that are thought to be from a domestic seller to discover that the bad quality items are from a Chinese seller.
One Response
“Counterfeit goods are experiencing a rise of demand amongst consumers” are they, or are they just more people selling them?
How is demand gauged, if there are few for sale demand is low?