How to counter counterfeits

Counterfeiting affects even small brands, but with tools like Amazon Transparency you can protect your products and customer trust.

Ara Balde-Marx • 2025-12-07

Personalizzazione

It could be you…

Imagine that you have spent months, perhaps even years of your life creating a product. You have carefully developed it, fabricated and tested countless prototypes, invested an immense amount of time, energy and resources, all to make your product the best it can be.

Once you are finally satisfied with your creation, you move on to the next stage: selling. As the small business owner that you are, you know that the easiest and most economically sensible decision is to take advantage of the endless possibilities of online shopping. So you open your online store, set up your professional site, plan and execute your marketing strategy. Several months pass, months of hard work in which you assimilate a thousand new notions. In the end, it’s worth it: your product begins to gain popularity, sales increase.

Before you can even fully savor the sense of pride and accomplishment you have just begun to get used to, you receive a sudden and unexpected wave of negative reviews. Customers complain about poor production quality, write about receiving defective units, and your store fills up with a myriad of one-star reviews. It is any small business owner’s worst nightmare, and it is your reality. What leaves you particularly stunned is that you have never received such complaints before. Moreover, being an expert on your project as well as all your few but excellent employees, you have always made sure that no unit left your warehouses without passing a rigorous quality check.

What happened? Responding to feedback and digging deep, what you discover shocks you. Someone has counterfeited your products.

Forgery: a threat on multiple fronts

Counterfeiting is “the action and manner of counterfeiting in imitating […] or falsifying […] or passing off as genuine similar products of lesser intrinsic and commercial value.” Although it may seem that only large companies and luxury brands are targeted, the reality is quite different. Counterfeiting affects companies of all sizes: whether you are a multinational corporation or a small e-commerce brand, any entrepreneur and any product can be a victim of this crime. Counterfeiting is a threat with profound and lasting consequences for businesses, the environment, and consumers.

More than 86 million counterfeit items with an estimated retail value of more than 2 billion euros were intercepted at EU borders in 2022. These counterfeit products are not limited to handbags and watches, but also include toys (11 percent), household appliances (10 percent), and food and beverages (20 percent), putting not only brands but also public health and safety at risk. The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) estimates that counterfeit products cost the EU economy as much as 83 billion euros a year, resulting in the loss of some 670,000 jobs.

The environmental impact is equally worrisome. Counterfeit operations often circumvent environmental regulations, using cheap and polluting materials and environmentally unsustainable production methods. Nearly 70 percent of these counterfeit products arrive in small packages, often ordered online, which generates a significant carbon footprint and makes the problem even more difficult to track.

Counterfeiting is not, as many think, a niche criminal activity: it is a well-organized global business and its consequences are closer to us than we think.

Countering counterfeiting – how to act after the fact

You are petrified before the screen, stunned by what you have just discovered. What to do? Don’t despair! Even when the damage is done, it is not necessarily irreparable. Surely, not reacting will only exacerbate the problem out of all proportion and eventually shut you down. Below are five tips on how you can react once you discover that your products are counterfeit.

When the damage is done: 5 actions to take if your product has been counterfeited

Document and collect evidence: save links, screenshots, customer complaints, and photos of counterfeit items. If you can, obtain a sample of the counterfeit product. This helps not only to support potential legal cases, but may also reveal gaps in the current protection of your intellectual property.
Report listings to online platforms: most e-commerce sites offer tools to report counterfeit items. Use these tools on platforms such as Amazon and eBay to have listings of counterfeit items removed. Your goal is to prevent fakes from reaching your existing or potential customers.
Alert the relevant authorities: a report to customs authorities can help prevent further imports of counterfeit versions of your products, helping you eradicate the problem when as close to the source as possible. In the European Union, you can submit reports through the “IP Enforcement” portal run by the EUIPO.
Take legal action: depending on the extent of the infringement, consider cease-and-desist letters, lawsuits or criminal charges, but also take your situation into account. Always consider that legal action can be expensive and is only really successful in countries with strong intellectual property regulations. Should you decide to take legal action, always work with legal counsel.
Communicate with your customers: share public statements in your online store and on your business’ social media channels. Protect your reputation by educating customers on how to recognize authentic products and by clearly and transparently explaining what actions you are taking to address the problem. If possible, plan a promotional campaign so you can rebuild your good reputation and regain your customers’ trust.

Preventing counterfeiting

Now that you have done your best to undo the damage, all that remains is to think about how you could have nipped the problem in the bud. Let’s try to figure out together what you could have done to minimize the risk of finding yourself in this unpleasant situation.

Register your intellectual property:

Register trademarks, designs and patents in all regions where your business is located. This way you can take legal action in case of infringement. We recommend that you take action as soon as possible! The sooner you register, the sooner you can count on a solid legal basis, thus eliminating possible loopholes that counterfeiters could exploit.

Design a unique and recognizable identity for your brand:

Work with professionals to develop unique logos, packaging, and product designs. The more recognizable your brand is and the harder it is to replicate, the more difficult it is for counterfeiters to succeed in forging it.

Use secure, tamper-proof packaging:

Incorporate elements such as holograms, QR codes, serialized barcodes or tamper-evident seals to deter counterfeiters and allow consumers to verify the authenticity of your products. In particular, serialization services such as Amazon Transparency are ideal for protecting your brand and minimizing the risk of counterfeiting your products.

Our suggestion: with professional design service, we at label.co.uk can help you not only breathe new life into your brand, but also create an entirely new one, should you need it. Our priority is to make sure your design is as unique as your product. Contact us to find out more at graphic design service.

Transparency-Amazon-QR Codes

An additional layer of protection: Amazon Transparency

With its Amazon Transparency program, the online shopping giant offers a highly effective solution in the fight against counterfeiting. This serialization service uses unique Datamatrix codes to verify the authenticity of individual units before they even reach the delivery van. Whether items are shipped by Amazon or directly from the seller, every item with a Transparency-enabled code is scanned. Products with invalid codes are discarded and removed from the marketplace.

As an official Transparency Service Provider or TSP, we are authorized to print program-compliant, ready-to-use adhesive labels. At etichetta.it, we constantly strive to make the process simple and efficient. With our Transparency Label Generator, fast turnaround times , and multilingual customer service, we are trusted by all brand owners who choose us for their Amazon Transparency labels.

Conclusion

This article has shown, how nowadays, it is essential to protect your brand and products from counterfeiting. Not only will you personally benefit from taking appropriate measures, but by doing so you will also protect others. Companies, whether large or small, will begin to take preventive measures making it difficult for counterfeiters to continue producing counterfeits. In this way, you will help minimize the economic and ecological consequences of counterfeiting.

What are you waiting for? Go to the official Transparency by Amazon page to sign up for the program, contact our team, and order your Amazon Transparency labels online.