How Printers Can Fight Brand Thievery
Brand owners need brand protection solutions to maintain trust, safety, and integrity with their customers. To fully comprehend the potential demand for solutions, think about these numbers:
- The International Chamber of Commerce expects the market for counterfeit goods to exceed $1.7 trillion by 2015—more than 2 percent of the world's total economic output. This hurts both businesses and entire economies through lost sales, lost tax revenues, and at least 2.5 million lost jobs.
- Fraud related adulteration is estimated to cost the global food and consumer products industry $10-$15 billion annually. (1)
- Online counterfeiting sales are estimated to cost businesses $135 billion annually. (2)
- Product diversion is estimated to cost as much as $63 billion in sales per year in the U.S. alone. (3)
Initially, it might seem counter-intuitive that criminals—thought to have limited resources and crude technologies—repeatedly outwit multi-million dollar brand owners. However, the reality is that many of today's attackers are not "mom-and-pop" shops but sophisticated global operations. Well-funded, these criminal enterprises easily purchase the knowledge or tools they need to commit fraud. In addition, other factors such as supply chain complexity, outsourcing, lack of monitoring, limited awareness, or failure to implement basic security solutions all contribute to a brand's vulnerability.
