Last year Salvatore Ferragamo, the Florence-based
luxury label , blocked, seized or destroyed more than 100,000 fake products in
a “fierce global battle against counterfeiting” focused on China and the
internet.
Men’s belts were the most commonly
counterfeited item, a spokesperson said. Leather belts bearing the brand’s
distinctive “double Gancini” metal buckle are sold for between €250 and €1,500,
although fakes were being offered for a fraction of this cost.
Handbags were the second most copied
items, followed by shoes for both men and women.
Taken together with 1,500
counterfeit products seized by Chinese customs authorities as they left the
country, Ferragamo said the total estimated sales value of the goods exceeded
$7m.
As part of the probe, the label
increased the number of ecommerce sites it monitored and recovered or cancelled
more than 350 domain names and illegal websites in 2014.
“In China, we have also expanded our
offline checks, targeting trade fairs and resellers in particular,” said Ferruccio
Ferragamo, chairman of the Salvatore Ferragamo Group.
“Also in China, the 2013 ruling
against a high-end hotel whose store sold counterfeit products was upheld on
appeal. We will further intensify our commitment to fighting counterfeiting in
2015, both to protect our intellectual property rights and to defend our
customers. In this way, we will continue to fight this war with great
determination, expanding controls both online and offline and ramping up
anti-counterfeit measures, including with the customs authorities.”
The group attributed its success to
increasing co-operation from local and international legislators, who are
becoming aware of the seriousness of the problem and are “updating legislation
to defend the rights of those suffering the effects of piracy and fakes”.
The problem of counterfeiting is
estimated to cost European brands $7.5bn (£5bn) a year, according to the World
Customs Organization, which estimates that 10 per cent of total world trade in
the fashion industry is counterfeit.
Luxury groups are increasingly
working with online companies to crack down on counterfeiters. Last July
British label Burberry signed deals with Amazon and China’s Tmall to remove
unauthorised distributors of Burberry goods.
Ebay has a program under which
brands can report sellers who are engaging in copyright infringements so the
online marketplace can remove them.
