25% of UK consumers purchased counterfeit goods last year - report

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Feb 4, 2019

Despite several efforts to curb the sale of counterfeit goods, UK consumers continue to buy fake products, according to new research.

In fact, a quarter of Britons have admitted to knowingly buying at least one counterfeit product in the last 12 months, revealed British business and consumer marketplace OnBuy.com after pulling highlights from Incopro’s ‘Counterfeit products are endemic – and it is damaging brand value’ report.

The sale of counterfeit products can have serious implications on a brand’s value and reputation, with 34% of consumers saying they would be less likely to buy goods directly from the brand if they knew it was relatively easy to find fake products from the same brand sold by a third party.

Meanwhile, 5% would actively seek out the counterfeit goods online, and only 1 in 5 consumers have reported a company selling fake goods.

Counterfeit products are estimated to cost the UK billions of pounds each year, and with the rise of online shopping, these products are now easily available across the internet. Online marketplaces have become a hotbed for fake goods, co-mingling with authentic products in warehouses.

But consumers are also getting savvier, with almost 70% stating that ‘price’ was the largest indicator that a product could potentially be counterfeit, said OnBuy.com. A further 44% consider ‘customer reviews’ as a warning sign, and 41% said that ‘country of the online seller’ could also indicate that the goods being sold might not be authentic.

Additionally, 39% of online shoppers said that the quality of ‘imagery’ and ‘product description’ had led them to question a product’s validity.