Over this year’s Thanksgiving weekend, more people did their holiday shopping online than in stores, according to the National Retail Federation. Now more than ever, companies with coveted intellectual property need to be on high alert for holiday brand protection.
The days of camping out in parking lots seems to have come to an end. Consumers today now enjoy the convenience of buying online – from both their gadget and location of choice.
While consumers are largely safe from elbows to the chest during the holiday rush to benefit from holiday deals, they may be vulnerable to purchases involving counterfeit items.
Those who stand to lose more from copycat IP than the consumers are those who have been stolen from, the brands themselves.
From a wide swath of industries, copycats cost large and small brands alike a total of billions each year.
The Tainted Experience of Counterfeit Gift-Giving
By the time a consumer has purchased a counterfeit gift, the magic and profitability of the brand has been tarnished. It’s not as if peddlers of counterfeit goods have a robust return policy.
When a husband gives his wife a counterfeit purse for Christmas, for example, it may be that he has no idea of what he’s giving her. As the big fan of the brand, it may be her alone who notices what’s off about the gift.
The husband will likely promise to fix the mistake. But by then, much of the magic has been diminished. That’s just one example of how counterfeiters severely compromise IP for all involved -- except for the counterfeiters making a profit from someone else’s property.
The Gift of Online Holiday Brand Protection
Online brand copycats are already a significant problem, and they’re getting worse. Most experts are in agreement that online counterfeit sales have eclipsed that of shady street vendors.
Unfortunately, if you have an established brand, or one that is new and wildly useful, you need a holiday brand protection strategy. Brands who have a laxed reputation for protecting their brand risk being targeted even more by predatory counterfeiters.
Here are Some Best Practices to Take Seriously:
- The holiday season can be a high-volume time for leads on counterfeit cases. Just one case can be extremely insightful, but you have to organize the data effectively. Disorganization can keep potential insights lost in the weeds
- Who’s on first?! The last thing you want is the Abbott and Costello routine when there’s an entire parallel industry potentially compromising your brand. An effective anti-counterfeiting software lets you know who's doing what, when, etc.
- Often, those who are assigned to battling holiday brand counterfeiting or copycats throughout the year take such jobs on in addition to other duties. Whoever is charge of battling brand counterfeiting, they could probably use some help! Scout’s case management software is like giving QuickBooks to the accounting department of your company. It’s a game-changer for your efforts
- A natural response to changes in workflows can be anxiety. How will a company’s anti-counterfeiting team adapt? Will it be in a timely manner? Any digital information you have in your workflow integrates seamlessly with Scout's software
- But is the software intuitive? Who can we talk to if our team has questions about how to use Scout? Thankfully, you don’t have to be a tech genius to enable an immediate impact for your holiday brand protection efforts
Our software is intuitive. Let us show you with a free demo at your convenience.
