The importance of a brand’s perception and reputation amongst consumers cannot be understated. When people think about denim jeans, Levi’s is often top of mind. When they think about running shoes, they will likely recall Nike. Whether it’s an iconic brand or a new and emerging player on the scene, the strength of a company’s brand – regardless of industry – is paramount to its success.
A strong brand tells consumers that its product is reputable, has a sterling reputation for delivering quality, and perhaps most importantly, can be trusted to meet their needs.
According to Oberlo – a drop-shipping platform powered by Shopify – 46% of consumers surveyed said they would pay more for brands they trust while the consistent presentation of a brand has been seen to increase revenue by 33%. Suffice to say, building a strong brand is of the utmost importance in the world of e-commerce.
What’s more, brand builders work tirelessly to maintain their reputation by selecting quality Amazon and other e-commerce marketplace resellers along with brick-and-mortar retailers that meet their brand’s high standards to distribute their products. Unfortunately, nefarious activities across e-commerce marketplaces are widespread. From counterfeiting to product diversion to triangulation fraud, the world of e-commerce is rife with the illegal and grey market activity that can undo all the hard work put into establishing a brand.
This is where brand protection comes into play.
What is brand protection?
As a basic concept, brand protection is the overall process or strategy utilised by an individual or organisation to prevent or eliminate the unauthorised – often illegal – use of their intellectual property (IP). As highlighted in previous GreyScout blogs, identifying and addressing threats to IP such as product diversion, grey market activity, along with product theft and resale, should all be a part of a brand’s protection strategy. In essence, brand protection can be viewed as the safeguards used by a business to stay on top of the activities of unauthorized third-party (3p) sellers, counterfeiters, plagiarists, pirates, and other criminals – both online and off.
Why is brand protection critical?
According to an Amazon brand protection report published in May 2021 blocked 10 billion counterfeit listings and spent $700M fighting fraud in 2020.
As e-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Google Shopping, and others have risen to prominence, counterfeiting and other types of infringements by unauthorized third-party sellers have become a massive issue.
According to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), IP crime continues to constitute a substantial threat to the health and safety of consumers with counterfeit and pirated goods worth EUR $119-billion imported into the EU in 2019. Even with a wide range of brand protection initiatives in place, counterfeiters are still targeting Amazon to push their illicit wares. According to Amazon’s first-ever brand protection report, the marketplace seized and destroyed more than 2 million products sent to their fulfilment centres that were detected as being counterfeit. For businesses that have invested a great deal of time and money into building a reputable brand, counterfeiting can have devastating effects.
Counterfeits of legitimate products can cause irreversible harm to a brand’s reputation as well as profit margins by undercutting the retail price of legitimate products with shoddy knockoffs.
The Bottom Line: Using Brand Protection Software
Counterfeiting is a massive, trillion-dollar industry. As highlighted above, however, counterfeiting and unauthorized 3P sellers on eCommerce marketplaces are just some of the many threats to a brand’s reputation that exists in the e-commerce sector. Hence, having a brand protection strategy that works along with an eCommerce strategy should be a key focus for global brands selling online.
With so many threats out there, brand protection can be a full-time job requiring time and expenses that drain a business of resources. Using automated brand protection software and tools like GreyScout can make it easier to monitor, identify, and quickly act to defend against scammers, counterfeiters, grey market resellers, and other cyber criminals online and on eCommerce at scale.
