By Sarah Morgan
In a previous blog Protecting against counterfeiting Sarah Morgan, Marketing Manager for NZ Story, talked about the importance New Zealand businesses place on authenticity when exporting products across the globe. The reason for this is valid – provenance can offer a competitive advantage when competing in premium markets, especially within China.
Keeping a track of the counterfeit trade in China
According to Yellow Brand Protection, one of the world’s leading providers of online brand protection, around 70% of all counterfeit products originate in China. With many New Zealand businesses exporting their products to China, NZ Story reached out to Yellow to support Licensees who are part of the FernMark Licence Programme as a way of helping combat this growing problem. Within China, Yellow has the broadest search technology for the China market – monitoring 150+ online marketplaces to ensure counterfeit sellers have ‘nowhere to hide’. These sites include the Alibaba Group & JD.com where Yellow monitors any misuse and/or counterfeiting of the trademark FernMark.
Online detection with Yellow Brand Protection
China is New Zealand’s second biggest export market and, as you may be aware, it has almost 20% of the world’s total e-commerce user base – equating to over 340 million people shopping online in China last year. However, this growth in e-commerce brings another challenge – it is also one of the most prevalent markets when it comes to trading counterfeit goods. And we’re not talking just handbags – our Kiwi food and beverage products also need to be protected.
How does the service work?
1.Tracking online listings
Yellow’s automated platform – ZERO – constantly monitors all leading online Business to Business and Business to Consumers marketplaces, auction sites, web shops, websites, apps and social media for cases of any products that carry the FernMark or similar marks.
2.Flag suspicious content
Yellow’s systems automatically filter large amount of data before flagging and prioritising content and product listings to us to determine if the online listing is unauthorised.
3.Enforce unauthorised listings
If the FernMark is being misused or unlicensed, we are able to enforce the listing via Yellow’s existing business relationships with the key online trading sites. Currently, Yellow’s enforcement rate is between 95 and 100 per cent of identified unauthorised listings.
To give you an indication of turnaround times, the average listing removal time across our client base is 24 hours on Alibaba.com and three days on Taobao. Ultimately it is Yellow’s detailed knowledge of rules and processes for enforcement actions across all platforms in China, coupled with very strong local relationships, that has made Yellow one of the most successful companies in the industry.
The Yellow Brand Protection Service is available to all Licensees on the FernMark Licence Programme.
Overview of the FernMark Licence Programme
The FernMark Licence Programme is designed to help exporters grow their business off shore through leveraging our country’s good reputation by carrying the trademark FernMark on their products. As a registered trademark, the FernMark also provides a level of legal trademark protection. In order to carry the FernMark Licence logo exporters must demonstrate their product is inherently connected to New Zealand through governance, ownership and employees; and that their product is either made, grown or designed in New Zealand. To find out more visit www.fernmark.nzstory.govt.nz