Buying replica handbags the European luxury brand's knockout is easy. They are so ordinary people that they hardly pay any price. But its popularity is actually a major issue that is undermining the European fashion industry.
According to a new report by the OHIM, replica clothes have resulted in annual sales of 9.7% of European sales to a staggering US$ 28.7 billion. The decline in sales led to the loss of 363,000 jobs in the manufacturing, retail and wholesale industries in the European fashion industry.
Customs mounted a replica handbag at a press conference held in Hong Kong on September 19, 2017. The Customs and the Police jointly cracked down on two warehouses selling fake handbags and shoddy products and seized 2,360 counterfeit and shoddy products in excess of US $ 128,000. According to the customs official press release, two men were arrested during the operation.
All of these losses have an indirect effect on the economy as a whole. The report said: "If sales in an industry are diminished by counterfeiting, the industry will also buy fewer goods and services from suppliers, resulting in lower sales and corresponding employment effects in other industries." Together with these consequences OHIM estimates that European governments will have revenues of 43.3 billion euros (47.2 billion U.S. dollars), about 518,000 jobs and 8.1 billion euros (8.8 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue.
OHIM determines sales losses by weighing factors such as per capita spending on clothing and footwear in each country, and the likelihood of consumers buying replica handbags. It is based on this estimate, which includes the level of income, economic inequality, and the percent of population admitted in previous studies buying replica handbags.
These figures have dealt a serious blow to some EU countries, notably Italy, which are most affected by counterfeiting. The country has just shaken off six years of economic stagnation and recession, and the importance of fashion to the economy is enough for the government to spend $ 21.6 million this year on promoting clothing exports to the United States. It not only lost the most direct sales. It also accounts for about 70% of the textiles used in the apparel and footwear industry. These factors are taken into account and a total of about 81,000 jobs have been lost. In contrast, France's textile imports accounted for only about 20% of them.
According to previous reports, most of the replica handbags came from China, which is the world's largest producer of counterfeit goods. Alibaba.com, the largest e-commerce site, was phased out. Earlier this year, Kering, the European luxury goods group that owns brands such as Gucci and Saint Laurent, sued the site for allegedly "promoting" and "encouraging" the sale of replica handbags.
OHIM reports that Chinese factories that make real products are often the factories that have been eliminated. It states: "Products in the Far East tend to be manufactured on the same day at legally branded factories in China." "It is easy to see that in many cases, the similarity between genuine and replica handbags can be impressive because fraud You can use the same methods and materials as making the original item. "
Criminal organizations in China have also created more counterfeiting in Europe. A separate report by OHIM earlier this year with Europol details how the fake business in China broke out in parts of Italy and Spain.
This is a global issue with the consequences of billions of dollars.