Purchasing imitations of luxury items has become some sort of irresistible temptation for customers forcing luxury brands to play cat and mouse with imitators.

The counterfeit business estimated at USD 1.9 billion is one of the biggest challenges faced by the luxury industry, having increased significantly in the last decade, when it became massive and pervasive.

Imitators have become far better at their craft, leading prominent market players such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Chanel and Jimmy Choo, to name a few, as well as resellers like Boycapel, to adopt more sophisticated tools to detect fake products.

One requires a deep knowledge of the manufacturing process of luxury products to detect replicas. It is handcrafted and extremely meticulous and detailed: stitches are hand-made, the ironwork is elaborate and extremely precise and unique, and the materials are pure and of a hard-sought quality.

Authentic Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Chanel handbags have details that only a few connoisseurs know about: the type of stitches, the embossing of the logo in certain parts, the ironwork, the texture of the leather or material, and even in some cases, the smell can give away the fake nature of the product.

Many shops have highly-trained staff with first-hand knowledge acquired in workshops of the brands in Europe.

It is the case of Boycapel, whose partner worked for eleven years at Hermes and visited many workshops of the company throughout Europe.

The rise of social media and technology has escalated the issue. Thousands of TikTok videos promote the looks that are craved by everyone, like some sort of 24/7 shop window with a “buy me”, “imitate me” neon sign.

A dupe culture that promotes the purchase of copies is becoming ever more popular which upholds the idea of buying replicas, with no intention of passing them off as real.

GenZ is especially keen on this trend, fueling its growth. According to marketing research agency Morning Consult brands should not see it as a cause of concern, but rather, take advantage of it. The agency is cited in an article published by the Financial Times “Counterfeit Goes Cool” holding that being duped means a brand is perceived as cool and desired.

However beneficial being desired and imitated might be, the economic loss suffered by the brands due to the fake business still needs to be addressed, especially when there is fraud involved.

With this in mind, luxury outlets as well as resale shops around the world have devised artificial intelligence based methods to beat the fake market.

Boycapel, for one, has been using Entruppy, an App which applies AI to identify copies. The app scans the products and compares it with its online database, thus detecting features which are overlooked by the human eye.

Entruppy relies on a huge database of millions of products real and fake scanned since 2012. Vidyuth Srinivasan, CEO of Entruppy, stated that the app has scanned luxury bags valued in around USD 2 billion to date, having discovered a 9.6% of fake products of that.

The fake business has led luxury brands to increase its awareness of sustainability both environmental and social in its production chain, and to stand out against abusive practices of the environment and child labor which are widely practiced by the imitation networks.

In a world in which identity is ever more valued, luxury is becoming more and more transparent and authentic.

Read this article in Spanish: https://boycapelvintage.com/luxury-news-es/

Written by Magdalena Bonta