Counterfeit clothing and footwear: how to protect the brand

Counterfeiting in fashion is not only a problem for luxury brands.

Just a few years ago, counterfeits were more commonly associated with luxury bags, limited-edition sneakers, and offline markets. Today, the situation has changed: counterfeit goods affect almost the entire fashion segment - from large international companies to local clothing and footwear brands.

It is not only premium goods that are being faked. Copies are appearing among sports brands, mass-market labels, designer brands, and even small local manufacturers. As soon as a product becomes recognizable and begins to sell steadily, the risk of illegal copies emerges.

At the same time, the distribution channels for counterfeit goods have also changed significantly. While fakes were previously sold mainly at markets, in small shops, and through unofficial retail outlets, today e-commerce is becoming one of the primary channels. Marketplaces allow sellers to quickly bring a new product to market, reach a wide audience, and simultaneously post dozens or even hundreds of product listings.

After one listing is removed, a seller can create a new one, change the product name or description, use different photos, or continue selling from a different account. As a result, a single complaint does not always solve the problem: effective brand protection requires constant monitoring and repeated verification of platforms.

Why clothing and footwear are especially often counterfeited

The fashion category remains one of the most vulnerable to counterfeiting. The reason lies in a combination of high demand, visual product recognition, and a relatively low barrier to copying.

Of course, clothing and footwear are easier to reproduce visually than complex electronics or other high-tech goods. For an unscrupulous seller, it is often enough to replicate the logo, silhouette, signature design elements, or use photos of the original product. In the digital environment, this is sufficient to convince the buyer of the product's authenticity.

Popular models, limited collections, including seasonal drops, and other high-demand items are copied particularly quickly. However, it is not only well-known international brands that are at risk. For local fashion companies, the threat is also becoming increasingly relevant: a successful model or a "viral" product quickly attracts the attention of counterfeiters.

The situation is further complicated by the speed at which violations spread. On marketplaces, the same product can be listed by dozens of sellers simultaneously, and product listings are quickly duplicated across platforms. As a result, a brand often learns about the problem only after customer complaints.

Why counterfeiting is dangerous for fashion brands

Most often, companies perceive counterfeits primarily as a problem of lost revenue. Indeed, counterfeit goods directly affect sales: some buyers consciously choose a cheaper copy instead of the original, while others simply do not realize they are purchasing a fake.

However, financial losses are only one side of the problem. For the fashion industry, reputational damage is particularly sensitive.

A buyer is not always able to distinguish an official product from a counterfeit. If shoes quickly deteriorate, fabric loses its shape after the first wash, dye runs, or the fit does not match what was advertised, the negative impression may be transferred directly to the brand. As a result, the company effectively bears reputational risks for products it neither produced nor sold.

Furthermore, the mass distribution of copies gradually erodes the value of the original product. When the same design or logo appears in numerous offers of dubious origin, the brand can lose its sense of exclusivity, quality, and control over its positioning. This is especially painful for companies in the mid-range and premium segments.

Additional pressure comes from official partners. Counterfeit goods are often sold significantly cheaper than the originals, creating a price imbalance and complicating the work of legal distributors and retailers.

There is also another problem: the loss of control over how the brand is used. A seller may not only sell counterfeit goods but also use registered trademarks, photographs, corporate branding, and other intellectual property without the right holder's permission.

Why manual monitoring is no longer enough

Many brands only begin to react to the problem after obvious signals appear: customer complaints, a drop in sales of a specific model, or the appearance of suspicious offers in marketplace search results. However, in today's environment, this approach is insufficient.

Counterfeiting in e-commerce is evolving dynamically. Sellers create new listings, change store and product names, use different images, adjust descriptions, and adapt to the actions of rights holders and marketplaces.

While a company employee manually checks one listing, new offers for the same product may appear on the platform. If a brand is present on several marketplaces, the workload increases even further.

For companies with a wide product range, manual monitoring becomes particularly labor-intensive. It is necessary to track hundreds of models, name variations, photos, sellers, and prices, and then verify each potential violation and gather evidence.

Therefore, the fight against counterfeiting is gradually shifting from isolated actions to systematic monitoring: the task is not only to find already known violations but also to regularly identify new ones.

Which method of protection against counterfeiting is most effective?

An effective brand protection strategy is usually built on several levels at once.

The first level is legal brand protection.

Companies should determine in advance which intellectual property assets need to be protected. These may include trademarks, logos, trade names, photographs, and other elements for which the rights holder can take action against unauthorized use.

In particular, trademark registration significantly expands the rights holder’s options for protecting a brand against unauthorized use of a designation. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that protection for different types of intellectual property arises on different grounds. For example, rights to a work may arise from the moment it is created, whereas exclusive rights to a trademark are linked to state registration.

Therefore, the legal foundation for brand protection should be established before the counterfeit problem reaches a significant scale.

The second level is continuous monitoring of the digital environment.

Today, it is not enough to monitor just one marketplace. Depending on the specifics of the brand, companies should track Ozon, Wildberries, Yandex Market, and other marketplaces, as well as online stores, social media, advertisements, and cross-border platforms.

It is also important to search for more than just exact matches of the brand name. Infringers may use variations of the name, photographs of genuine products, individual elements of the brand’s visual identity, or list products in categories where they are more difficult to find through a standard search.

The third level is verification of detected infringements.

The mere discovery of a suspicious product listing does not necessarily mean that a complaint should be filed. First, it is important to verify the seller, the content of the listing, the product itself, the use of the trademark, and other relevant circumstances.

This stage helps distinguish genuine infringements from legitimate offers, such as genuine products that have been lawfully placed on the market or listings where the use of the designation does not infringe the rights holder’s rights.

The fourth level is prompt response and monitoring of the outcome.

Once an infringement has been confirmed, the evidence should be preserved, the appropriate complaint should be prepared, and it should be submitted to the marketplace or directly to the seller, depending on the specific circumstances and the chosen strategy.

However, the process does not end with the removal of a single listing. It is necessary to check whether a similar listing has appeared again, whether the seller has listed the same product under a different name, or whether they have moved to another marketplace.

How automated monitoring helps brands

This is why fashion brands are increasingly using automated monitoring tools. They allow for regular scanning of marketplaces, finding suspicious offers, matching information about products and sellers, and generating a dataset for further legal review.

For example, according to ZIPDetect’s data, while working with a major brand from March to June 2026 on three marketplaces - Ozon, Wildberries, and Yandex Market - 3,529 suspicious listings from 712 sellers were identified. After verification, violations were not confirmed in all cases: complaints were filed against 302 sellers regarding 2,371 listings, while the remaining results were filtered out during the verification stage.

Violation detection in ZIPDetect occurs automatically: marketplace monitoring is conducted weekly, and once a violation is confirmed, a complaint is generated and sent on the same day. Following the review of these submissions, violations were resolved in approximately 78–80% of the listings for which complaints were filed.

This example illustrates why automation is particularly important when dealing with a large number of sellers and product listings. Without a specialized tool, regularly checking several thousand offers across various platforms would require significant human resources. At the same time, automated monitoring does not replace expert review: the system helps to quickly identify potential violations, after which a specialist evaluates the results and decides on the next steps.

What a fashion brand should do right now

For most companies, the optimal strategy begins with an audit of current risks. First and foremost, it is necessary to determine which trademarks and other intellectual property objects are used by the brand, on which platforms products are officially sold, and which sellers are authorized to distribute them.

The next step is to create a list of key search criteria: brand and individual model names, spelling variations, images, and characteristic elements of corporate design. After this, regular monitoring can be set up and a procedure for verifying the found listings can be established.

It is also important to determine in advance who within the company is responsible for handling violations. If a discovered product listing is not verified and no decision is made regarding it, monitoring alone will not yield a complete result.

Ultimately, effective protection of a fashion brand against counterfeiting is not a one-time fight against individual sellers, but a continuous process: detection – verification – recording the violation – complaint – result control – repeated monitoring.

The earlier a company builds such a system, the easier it is to control the spread of fakes and the less likely it is that individual violations will grow into a large-scale problem. For the fashion industry, where reputation, visual recognition, and customer trust directly affect sales, systematic control of digital channels is no longer an optional extra, but an essential part of business protection.