Status: 04/21/2023 09:35 a.m
The US group Amazon has called for industry-wide cooperation in the fight against counterfeiting. The idea: Online traders should exchange information about counterfeiters with each other.
The US retail giant Amazon wants to step up action against counterfeiters. The company has launched the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX) initiative to help retailers identify and track counterfeiting on the Internet marketplace.
Online marketplaces struggle to keep counterfeiters off their platforms and prevent counterfeit goods from entering their warehouses. The new program mimics the credit card industry’s data exchange programs to find scammers and identify their tactics.
Stores and sellers on the Amazon marketplace may anonymously submit counterfeiting information and records to a third-party database or use the database to avoid doing business with dubious trading partners.
Trader exchanges to stop scammers
“We think it’s important to share information about confirmed counterfeiters to help the entire industry stop these criminals sooner,” Amazon said in a statement. Through ACX, Amazon has already uncovered hundreds of matching accounts where the same counterfeiter attempted to set up sales accounts with Amazon and at least one other shop owner. As soon as one of the participating dealers discovers a counterfeiter and passes on the information via ACX, all other participating dealers would know about the counterfeiter – in order to stop him faster.
The Seattle-based retail conglomerate launched the anti-counterfeiting initiative in 2021 with an undisclosed number of clothing, home goods and cosmetics stores where counterfeiting is most prevalent. Amazon is also working with US Customs on a data pilot project to help fight counterfeit goods.
Six million items disposed of in 2022
In the past year, Amazon confiscated and disposed of more than six million counterfeit items. The year before, there was talk of around three million stopped counterfeit products.
According to Amazon, the measures taken so far have already had a deterrent effect. The number of accounts that “actors with bad intentions” want to create is falling, according to a statement at the beginning of the month. In 2020 Amazon stopped six million such attempts, in 2021 it was around 2.5 million and last year only 800,000.
Amazon not only sells goods itself, but also acts as a platform for other retailers. Product counterfeiters often try to use this as a gateway. That is why the group expanded, among other things, the controls when setting up a dealer account.