In recent years, import cross-border e-commerce has become very popular. Along with this, there is also the problem of counterfeit goods. Compared with domestic e-commerce, the industrial chain of import cross-border e-commerce is longer and more complex, so it is easier to breed counterfeiting space. From my observation, there are two ways of cross-border counterfeiting: one is blatant counterfeiting, such as various fake imported LV bags; the other is covert counterfeiting, such as the previous sensation of the Mi Ya Betta baby bottle incident.
First, let’s talk about blatant counterfeiting, that is, directly counterfeiting branded goods and selling them without the authorization of the brand. This is particularly serious in the field of luxury goods, and a term derived from it is called “A goods”, which means high-quality counterfeit goods. In Guangzhou, there are many factories specializing in the production of A goods, which are finely crafted and almost indistinguishable from the originals. Only professionals can distinguish between the real and the fake. The A goods produced will be exported in batches to foreign countries, and then imported and sold in various ways. In addition to luxury goods, some well-known brands of diapers, milk powder, and cosmetics have also become hard-hit areas, and some are even directly counterfeited abroad.
For example, in February 2015, the Korean Patent Office raided a counterfeit den of Lidzi facial masks, which had produced more than 100,000 facial masks and sold them to China. In the past, these counterfeits often entered the country through gray channels such as smuggling. Now, with the cross-border e-commerce channel, especially in some pilot cities where the control is not strict enough, counterfeits can be sold to Chinese consumers under the legal cloak of cross-border e-commerce.
Let’s talk about counterfeiting in secret. The reason why it is called secret is that this type of counterfeiting is almost completely legal and compliant.
First, register the trademark rights of well-known foreign brands in China, then entrust foreign factories to produce similar products, and then sell them to Chinese consumers through cross-border e-commerce. In the Miaya Betta baby bottle incident, the Chinese company Yisais first registered the Betta trademark rights of the well-known Japanese company ZOOM.T in China, then commissioned Japanese factories to produce them, and finally sold them through cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Miaya. Because the brand name is Betta and it is indeed produced by a Japanese factory, many consumers mistakenly think it is a genuine ZOOM.T product. From a legal perspective, this behavior is not illegal. The industrial and commercial department verified the information provided by MiYa (including but not limited to certificates of origin, customs declarations, commodity inspection certificates, transportation certificates, etc.), and the final investigation results showed that MiYa and its suppliers met the procedures.
Although it is compliant, this kind of “fake” game has greatly damaged the brand image of cross-border e-commerce companies after being exposed. Therefore, MiYa removed all Betta brand products from its shelves. And Isais, the company that copied Japan’s ZOOM.T, not only did not receive legal sanctions (its behavior itself was indeed not illegal), but also made a lot of money from it openly.
In the cross-border e-commerce industry, the counterpart of counterfeit goods is parallel imports. Parallel imports refer to goods that are normally circulated in foreign markets, which enter the country through gray channels through merchants and are then sold in China. These goods are genuine, but there are no documents such as customs declarations and commodity inspection certificates, and there is no direct authorization from foreign brands. To a certain extent, it is precisely because of the existence of parallel imports that the country has begun to pay attention to the needs of domestic consumers and launched a pilot program for imported cross-border e-commerce. In the past, parallel imports could only enter the country through gray channels; now, parallel imports have become transparent with the help of cross-border e-commerce.