Written by Ana P., Yoni E.
Companies and businesses need to be unique, serve a particular market, and public and develop products or services that are necessary for modern society. All companies are liable to be the target of counterfeiting and the higher the fame or volume of profit a company has, the more likely its products are to be counterfeit.
The parallel counterfeit business takes away millions of euros in profit from companies every year, with an estimated 1.8 trillion euros compared between 2018 to 2019, in Europe. In Portugal during 2020 only, there were losses of 331 million euros in merely 4 large business areas, which includes the pharmaceutical sector, it is also reported that in 97% of these products, had chemicals or materials dangerous to public health. And values tend to increase, despite efforts across Europe to adopt and reinforce government laws and measures that prevent the entry of counterfeited products into the economic system.
Counterfeiting and devirtualization of original products is a problematic question that has affected all sectors of activities, from beauty products, clothing, even food, and pharmaceutical products and if we think that many of the counterfeit products contain chemicals or materials that can be harmful to public health, the situation acquires more important contours for their regularization and combat.
Moreover, most buyers can’t distinguish between fake and original products. In fact 60% of buyers of fake products didn’t know they were actually buying a fake product instead of an original. – according to EUIPO report from 2021. This difficulty can lead to confidence breaches of brands and products from consumers, but it can also be a tool for combating counterfeiting by companies.
How?
By providing tools for immediate and fast access to consumers to verify the authenticity of the product, companies ensure buyers get better information about their products, so they can make an informed purchase and increase profits.
Despite the large reduction in the number of items detained, the estimated value of the reported items detained in the EU internal market remained almost unchanged in 2019 (EUR 1.8 billion) compared to 2018, indicating that law enforcement made fewer but higher value detentions in 2019 compared with the previous year.
Accordingly to EUIPO report.
Unfortunately, many companies lack knowledge of how to make their products traceable, making sure the buyer knows the product is authentic and reliable, therefore generating value and profit.
Nowadays, organizations like INCM or Digimarc, among others, are at the forefront of this problem, providing disruptive and low-cost technology and access to all, using new digital technologies, integrating consumers as part of the chain of these processes against counterfeiters.
Solutions like encrypted codes, encoded seals designed not to look like seals, chipless and digital tags that can easily be scanned by users providing vital information about the product, giving the users tools to make an informed purchase and also, giving them the power to report fake products whenever traditional supply chain measures fail, which ultimately will improve companies revenue and brand reputation.
AlmaScience is aware of this global problem and is developing smart, sustainable, and low-cost solutions for companies willing to make a shift in their business model.
We are an innovation technology lab offering smart product solutions suitable for tomorrow's industry.
Contact us to be a part the top-notch group of organizations leading the future.
To learn more and for partnerships contact
Dr. Yoni Engel
Business Development Manager