According to a recent article by Fast Company, an industry trade group called the American Apparel & Footwear Association, which represents “1,000 brands, including Gap, Adidas, and Target,” has recommended that five of Amazon’s international sites “be added to the U.S. government’s… list of Notorious Markets.”
The five offenders are Amazon’s UK, Canadian, French, German, and Indian sites, which, the 1,000 brands allege, are so rife with counterfeits that it can be “hard to tell what is real and what is fake.”
At this point, Amazon’s counterfeiting problem is longstanding and well-documented. And while the company has long played innocent, its listings are “ultimately controlled by Amazon itself, rather than sellers,” meaning that if a counterfeit is on the site, Amazon is letting it be there.
What’s more, Amazon’s in-house brand strategy has essentially been to copy “brands that are top sellers on the site.”
Though it’s “unclear whether the U.S. government will put these websites on the Notorious Markets list,” if they did, the move could trigger “trade sanctions or other legal means to induce Amazon to take stricter measures to curb counterfeiting.”
As the article notes, “Part of Amazon’s business is to be a marketplace for other brands, and yet within the fashion industry, the platform seems to be alienating companies at every turn. It’s not a good look.”
You can read more about it at Fast Company.
