Facebook’s Meta and Instagram have emerged as hot spots for million-dollar brands. These platforms have recorded high sales of ersatz offenders who exploit their exclusive clientele. They are struggling to stop counterfeits from pushing fake luxury goods for brands like Channel and Gucci across social media apps. Experts have been policing these platforms for the brand dummies.
Research in 2021 has revealed they were more than 26,000 active counterfeiters’ accounts operating on Facebook and more than 20,000 on Instagram. Categorizing them as per the nations, 65 per cent of accounts have belonged to the Chinese followed by Russia and Turkey.
Most buyers know they are not getting the real deal when they pay $100 for a handbag that retails for over $5,000. But harms include hits to brands’ sales and reputation, potential safety issues of unregulated goods, and ties between counterfeiting and organized criminal activity, experts said.
In 2020, Chanel, Lacoste and Gant left a European Commission initiative aimed at increasing cooperation between brands and sites including eBay, Alibaba and Facebook’s Marketplace to fight counterfeit, saying it was not effective.
Chanel finance chief, Philippe Blondiaux, said in an interview last year that Chanel, which only sells cosmetics and perfume online, did not believe Facebook or Instagram were “the right environment to sell luxury items,” adding the brand wanted a “very protected” and intimate environment for its customers.