Background

Why is this needed?

Problem

It is clear the fashion industry has been challenged with battling the unauthentic market of its products.

In 2016 alone, trade in counterfeit and pirated products amounted to as much as $509 billion (rise from $461 billion in 2013), where fashion counted for around 60%. Over time and with a growing market, fakes are becoming more similar to the originals making authentication difficult to distinguish, only increasing the issue.

Centralized parties have created systems to help prevent counterfeits, whether it be the control of products listed on secondary marketplaces or having authenticity checks between the transaction of an item. Human verification systems is the biggest example of this authenticity check, yet they cannot provide lifetime digital authenticity. Experts performing verification keep up to date with current distribution trends and keep in close connection with primary retailers to help identify fakes.

In order to facilitate these expensive systems high service fees pass the burden of authenticating to the consumers. This leaves both purchasers and sellers discouraged to authenticate their items and prefer to use other platforms with lower costs. Furthermore, performing the human verification increases product delivery time and damages the customer experience on that marketplace. It’s important to mention that these types of verification systems are still not completely accurate, human errors are made and counterfeits can still match authentic products exactly.

What is needed is a globally recognised system for dealing with counterfeit products, one which the retailers directly support.