The Ultimate Guide To Brand Protection Against Ecommerce Counterfeiters

The Ultimate Guide to Brand Protection Against ecommerce Counterfeiters

As technology takes the leap towards innovation, many businesses take their chances to boomon the digital network. 

But, on the other hand, even illegal entities enter the domain to hitch a ride on genuine innovations launched by the businesses to enhance their malicious plans. In fact, these illegal entities use the internet to expand their reach of e-commerce to peddle their counterfeit or fake products

A LocalCircles study shows that out of the 6923 respondents interviewed, 38% had received counterfeit goods from eCommerce stores. This shows how dramatically counterfeit goods are hurting the sales of legit e-commerce sellers.

Luckily brand protection can come to aid in such a situation.

What is brand protection?

Brand Protection, as the name suggests, is a procedure of safeguarding intellectual property (IP) of the companies or businesses and their related brands from the copyright pirates, counterfeiters and infringers of other IP types like a colour mark, trade dress, patents, etc.

By doing brand protection, the business not only protects its loss of revenue but also safeguard’s its reputation, image along with the overall value. So, basically, brand protection is nothing but prevention against brand abuse done by illegal entities.

What will the brand protection service include?

Brand protection services are very streamlined and can be divided into four critical processes, such as:

1. Detection: With this service, the service provider finds infringements online, wherever that can be happening. This process can include checking for e-commerce counterfeit listings, rogue websites or social media profiles impersonating your brand along with multiple other types of infringements.

    

2. Validation: In the validation process, the service provider will ensure that the products and services tagged as infringements are genuinely infringements. With validation, the service provider ensures that the authentic company isn’t penalized while enforcing the IP rights of the illegal entities. 

3. Enforcement: Within the enforcement process, IP transgression online is actually removed. This can also include removing infringed product listings on any online marketplace, removing the rogue website, or even deleting the impersonating social media accounts.

    

4. Reporting: In the final stage of reporting, useful and actionable information are presented to the brands so that they can stay aware of the IP online status. This allows in improving the process of brand protection, if required, in the future.

What are the aspects of brand protection software?

The internet has its positives, but it can prove a battleground for the illegal entities to fully promote counterfeit products. And that is why it becomes important to use modern brand protection technology to tackle the issue.

The four aspects of brand protection software include:

1. Keyword monitoring: The first aspect of brand protection software is keyword monitoring. In order to sell products online, even counterfeit products rely on using keywords to become visible in the listing. For detection, bots are programmed to scan through high-risk websites and other contents in search of similar keywords. And since the counterfeits keep updating or changing their use of keywords, it becomes important for the brands to keep up with fake sells on the online marketplace listings. 

2. Image recognition: Image recognition is a type of software that quickly analyzes the images available online. There are various forms of image recognition that have different complexity. The simpler technology of photo recognition is utilized to search and locate matching images. The most complex technology is utilized for object recognition within a photo, no matter where is the position or placement of that object in the image. 

3. Machine learning: With machine learning, neural networks are used to continuously identify and track patterns or correlations in data. This way, more accurate and reliable search parameters are formed.

   On the creation of these parameters, the keyword monitoring programs as well image recognition become capable of functioning more effectively and efficiently. If required, the changes can be made continuously until the final and effective parameter is set. 

4. Smart user experience: Brand protection is used by the brand, and that means it is important that the interface is simple to understand and easy to use. By utilizing modern brand protection service, the company can save a lot of time and money compared to hiring a professional team of lawyers.

   But, if the service ends up needing the company to spend multiple hours just to go through the intricate data, then hiring legal personnel becomes the better option. Smart brand protection must be capable of filtering irrelevant details and only provide users with information that are important for making sound decisions instantly. 

How to protect the brand?

Counterfeit is a serious problem that damages a brand on a deeper level. So, as a business owner or administrator, it is crucial that you take smart steps, such as:

• As a first step towards a brand protection solution, get your intellectual property registered.

• If possible, sign NDAs with the partners you are working with, or else you will end up putting your brand at a huge risk.

• Register a relevant domain name and remove harmful sites to fight against the harms to your brand.

• Maintain a strong online presence to establish your brand’s authenticity.

• Educate your customers to determine legitimate and counterfeit products.

   

Over to you

It goes without saying, the consequences of selling counterfeit goods can directly damage the legitimate business. That is why it is important that brands or businesses, newer or fully- established, should always have a brand protection strategy in place to combat fraud and counterfeiting that in abundance in today’s online market. The use of advanced solutions like Wersel Counterfeit solutions would ensure 100% protection of legit brands and enable them to uncover fraudulent practices involving their brands or product. Call us today to schedule a demo.