Counterfeit goods is big business, and getting bigger thanks to the growth of online shopping.
Stuart Fuller, director of commercial operations at NetNames, which is a global firm specializing in online brand protection and anticounterfeiting services, said his company’s most recent analysis positions counterfeit as a “global pandemic.” He said the global online market of counterfeit goods increased 15.6 percent in 2014, and he expects it to increase again this year.
Fuller said the total revenue of the counterfeit market is $1.8 trillion globally, “and out of that, we believe that the U.S. economy loses about $225 billion in economic activity to counterfeit goods.” Here, Fuller discusses these trends and how it impacts retailers and brands.
WWD: Can you frame the impact on brands across industries, to illustrate just how ubiquitous this problem is?
Stuart Fuller: With 4.7 billion online consumers predicted by 2020, the explosion of the Internet as a core channel for customer engagement has created huge opportunities for commerce — but also serious and continually evolving threats that cost companies worldwide billions of dollars in revenue every year — to counterfeiting. Globally, the industries most affected are financial services, entertainment, luxury brands, technology, retail/fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and pharmaceuticals.
U.S. companies lose some 15 to
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