Today,
counterfeit clothing and accessories pose a great problem for buyers, retailers
and even the regulatory bodies. Furthermore, commenting on the growing
counterfeiting cases worldwide, the South African Clothing and Textile Workers
Union’s, senior researcher, Simon Eppel said “It hampers economic growth and
job creation and leads to greater income inequality. In this way, fraud also
jeopardises the economic and industrial policy initiatives of the state.”
According to an article published in the “iOL News “over R3 billion loss was
recorded in South Africa alone, due to the fake designer clothing and
accessories being brought into the nation. In a similar incident, the
“Worcestershire News” in their 6 July 2015 edition reported raids carried out
on houses linked to fake designer clothing sales on social media platform like
Facebook.
Likewise,
the “World Customs Organisation”, indicates that fake clothing’s and
accessories have cost fashion brands approximately 400,000 job losses. The aforementioned
organization further uncovered that close to £5 billion in proceeds was lost
over past 20 years due to counterfeit clothing. In the United Kingdom alone
fake designer clothes are believed to cost the country’s economy nearly £1
million in both tax and profits. Moreover, in recent years there has been a
significant rise in the counterfeit clothes sold online. So to beat the heat,
many new technologies are being implemented that can help brands tackle fake
designer clothing and accessories.
In 2014,
some chemical engineers at MIT predicted that soon shoppers would be able to
identify fake goods themselves. These engineers highlighted that soon
smartphones would enable customers to detect brand ID codes using infrared
technology. Similarly, in May 2015 Stora
Enso and NXP introduced their smart packaging solution with NFC. Stora Enso
integrates a RFID system provided by the NXP Semiconductors with its product
packaging solutions. Commenting on their achievement NXP explained “By using
NXP RFID technology such as NFC and ultra-high frequency (UHF), Stora Enso
smart packages can be easily tracked and traced through the entire supply chain
providing full end-to-end transparency.” Besides this, bar codes and upcoming
track – and – trace systems like DNATrax would soon be in vogue to ensure safe
packaging that prevents copy, promises safety of the packaged clothes and
accessories and protects the integrity of the supply chain management.
Considering
the recent boom in the global anti-counterfeit clothing and accessories
packaging market, a report published by “Allied Market Research “indicates that
the aforesaid market would grow by leaps and bounds . According to the report
the anti-counterfeit clothing and accessories packaging segment would see a
CAGR of 9.9 percent by 2020.
