Why Has Technology Become The Last Line Of Defense For Luxury Goods?

In recent years, luxury goods are often seen, and when to ensure the purchase of genuine goods has become a topic of conversation.

It is understood that before the instructor did not believe this sentence, they believe that their decades of experience and feel hard to be copied.

Luxury companies will also ask them to hide their signature marks in goods to show legitimacy.

But nowadays, even if it is in line with official descriptions, it is impossible to escape counterfeit goods.

Lu Minghan has never found luxury shopping since he had a fake package two years ago.

In order to save money, the Shanghai white-collar worker bought nearly twenty thousand yuan to buy a ChanelGST at the time when he found the familiar purchasing agent. He did not expect that after the first half year, when he went to the Shanghai counter, he was told that the serial number did not exist.

"The guarantee before purchase is genuine."

She turned over the history of conversation held on WeChat, "she said," the laser mark is proof, and the serial number of the card is concave and convex. "

But when Lu Ming Han again verified the information with the purchase agent, the other side was vague, suggesting that she should look for the third party to identify the authenticity.

The story then went into a dead circle: two second-hand stores gave different results; the brand side did not provide identification unless the police were alerting; however, because the suspected amount was too small, the police refused to file a case.

"Luxury brands are not required to identify authenticity, and Taobao counters are fake."

Jason, who worked for many luxury goods counters, said, "because we can't distinguish ourselves."

In case of a good VIP, the teller at most brings out the store's authentic products to let the customers compare themselves.

In the mall where he works, he will meet visitors on average in two or three months.

Sometimes the layman can distinguish the true from the false by the naked eye and the hand, such as the wallet weight, but most of the time they can only be lost.

After luxury goods flow into the secondary market, it becomes more difficult to distinguish true from false.

Alibaba's leisure fish platform is located in the cooperation of luxury inspection center of China inspection group. The seller is responsible for sending the goods to appraisal when necessary.

"How can they cooperate with hundreds of luxury brands around the world?" Jason does not believe in the self inspection ability of the third party, but cooperation with the brand obviously does not meet cost control.

Christie's

MattRubinger, the international head of accessories and accessories department, is known as "the best judge of Hermes", mainly because he has a good relationship with the brand worker, and knows many ways to identify strangers.

Hongkong old brand shop BangBang70 's opens in antique block, shop owner Parker runs Europe and Japan all the year round, through material and workmanship distinguish true and false, in the final analysis, all depend on experience.

However, such experts are few and far between.

For a long time, counterfeiting is like a shadow of luxury.

In 1896, facing the fake Louis Weedon's canvas box, the founder's son, GeorgesVuitton, launched the logo with the name - the LV letter (founder LouisVuitton name abbreviation) and Japanese pattern.

Of course, some people see counterfeit as part of the fashion game. Prada CEO PatrizioBertelli told New York Times reporter RobinPogrebin: "if my product is not copied, it worries me."

Most luxury brands did not find the seriousness of the problem until the end of 1990s.

In the book "luxury!" written by DanaThomas, there is a description: in 1980s, a wave of Korean immigrants came to Losangeles. They built Santee's (SanteeAlley) into an open-air market. They quickly produced T-shirts and jeans and sold them at a low price.

Luxury brands do not ignore these counterfeiters, and the damage to the luxury brands is also true. In 2015, Italy brand SalvatoreFerragamo and China Customs intercepted 34 thousand imitations, and the market price was expected to be around 17 million yuan (about 110 million yuan).

Since the rise of purchasing agents, more customers who buy fake goods are actually the victims of mixed sales.

According to Bain's 2014 Luxury Market Research Report, 70% of mainland Chinese respondents bought luxury goods through purchasing channels, which contributed 50% of their sales to mainland stores.

The emergence and popularity of e-commerce platforms has increased.

The scope of selling fake products and the difficulty in cracking down on fake goods.

A generation of young people who are trained by electricity providers are accustomed to its convenience. Why not buy luxury brands at preferential prices? "On the Internet, you will see 5000 pounds of watches or 2000 pounds of handbags," said CharlieAbrahams, vice president of MarkMonitor. "The difficulty is that you don't know whether it is true or false."

Once the e-commerce platform is sold, luxury brands often find the legal responsibility of the platform.

Over the past few years, Gucci has been cracking down on counterfeit products in the Chinese market.

Last year, Kai Yun group accused Alibaba of turning a blind eye to fake products sold on its website.

In April of this year, Alibaba was approved to join the international anti fake InternationalAnti-counterfeitingCoalition (IACC), and Gucci withdrew from the alliance in May 8th.

On the whole, you can see that litigation is the most commonly used method of luxury brands, as in August of this year, AlexanderWang sent 459 websites that believed to sell its counterfeit products to court.

The cost of collecting evidence and litigation is very high. European apparel companies spend about 10% of their revenues every year.

But almost all these means are the ex post military officers, and the actual economic losses caused by the counterfeiters have already been generated, and the deterrent effect is limited, because they often do not know who or where the counterfeiters are and where the court summons are not delivered.

Following the sales and legal departments, IT is the latest addition to luxury companies.

In addition to traditional means such as surveillance, appeal and destruction, more and more luxury brands choose to press the last anti-counterfeit electronic chip before the commodity shelves.

Three weeks ago, the chief information officer of LVMH Paris headquarters participated in the technology sharing, explaining that Lu Yang was the chief information officer of Louis Vuitton.

After leaving last year, Lu Yang became the co founder of BitSE, a technology company, and launched a traceability supply chain platform "Vechain".

The first partner of the chain is also from the fashion industry.

"Economist's report on the global trend of block chain last year laid a solid foundation for us."

He demonstrated the application of the product in the static exhibition of cooperation with the independent designer brand Babyghost. The audience can check the origin, production date, product number and other information by scanning the chip hidden on the clothes.

"What we can do is to increase the cost of imitation from an economic point of view."

Lu Yang explains, "the chain based on block chaining can not be duplicated, or if the computer forcibly deciphered, it will take ten thousand years to operate."

In addition to the fashion and technology media, Louis Weedon and Dior logistics director were invited on the day of the Shanghai press conference.

Moncler and SalvatoreFerragamo are also using technology to prevent counterfeiting.

Starting from the 2016 spring and summer series, consumers only need to use the first app scanning Moncler tag on mobile phones to distinguish authenticity.

The latter added the RFID RFID chip to the left sole.

However, today, hairy crabs can sweep the two-dimensional code to prevent counterfeiting, but technical anti-counterfeiting has never been popularized among luxury brands with single value.

There is no shortage of technical anti-counterfeiting companies in the market. In addition to the "chain only" mentioned above, MarkMonitor, an anti counterfeiting technology provider affiliated with Tang Sen Reuters, can monitor unauthorized sales channels, gray markets and the sale of counterfeit products.

Lu Yang explained: "

The scale effect. "

Apart from the small brands that are not easily replicated, the top ten of the year's mass luxury brands are not too fond of counterfeit goods in the first 20 years of commercial development.

In the past, when companies need to dig deep into different markets, they find that fraud is not only eroding their profits, but also damaging their brand image.

This is the decisive decision against counterfeiting.

"The popularity of technical anti-counterfeiting is not high, mainly because it is not the core competitiveness of luxury brands."

Lu Yang said that technology was first used by enterprises to improve efficiency, until the rise of digital media in recent years, its effectiveness gradually increased.

Another reason why brands are hesitant is that they find it difficult to hide the anti-counterfeiting mark, which enables users to find it and prevent counterfeiters from finding it too simply, and at the same time, does not affect the appearance of merchandise.

In the process of application of technical anti-counterfeiting, some barriers lie in the privacy regulations implemented by various countries.

StevenOwen, executive vice president of NXP semiconductor, based in Holland, said: "you have to explain to customers that the identification chip is included in clothing or shoes."

For example, Burberry has published some products on its official website, and has used RFID technology since 2012.

In the United States, there are some state laws that prohibit RFID technology.

But more luxury goods companies have never used RFID technology to prevent counterfeit products. Like most new things, RFID has not been noticed by luxury brands at the beginning.

"Despite the long history of electronic recognition, the company's acceptance of this technology is very long.

Part of the reason is that the whole set of identification and tracking systems is expensive, and SMEs need to invest millions of dollars to cover all products. "

StevenOwen explains.

If Burberry and other luxury goods companies in Europe and America are willing to use technology forgery in some markets, then in China, they can see less fashion companies using related technologies.

"At present, block chain is generally conservative in China.

Like any emerging technology, there will be a gradual process.

Lu Yang said at the end of the Shanghai conference.

Therefore, in order to improve the quality of products, technology must be hardened so that customers can buy real products at ease.