Fashion firms and counterfeiting: causes and actions

This study proposes a qualitative exploratory analysis on counterfeiting from the legitimate firms’ perspective in order to investigate their perceptions and the real approaches they take to tackle this phenomenon. The analysis is carried out by juxtaposing the existing literature with the original brands’ point of view, gathered through 18 in-depth interviews with brand protection/intellectual property managers of luxury and non-luxury firms. These companies were specifically chosen since they operate in those sectors that have registered the greatest losses in terms of value, due to counterfeiting, on a European level in the past few years (European Commission, 2014). The analysis highlights that in a global, technology driven, low legislative enforcement context, businesses identify consumer complicity and anti-big business attitudes as two of the main factors for counterfeiting. To deal with these factors, firms must construct a complete brand protection/anti-counterfeiting framework, of which they must closely supervise the ‘weak links’, i.e. supply and distribution chains’ monitoring as well as personnel formation.