TikTok recently launched an e-commerce service in the US with ambitious targets, with Bloomberg reporting that the company hopes to reach annual sales of $US17.5 billion ($AU26.2 billion) this year.
Users and brands can tag and sell products via videos on TikTok Shop. More than 150,000 users posted product videos during the holiday season, generating more than five million customers.
Second-hand products are also offered. LVMH has a verified TikTok account but does not sell products via the social media platform.
“Online marketplaces like Amazon., JD, and Alibaba’s Tmall have long seen sellers hawking counterfeit products at very low prices, combating them with varying degrees of success,” writes Alex Barinka for Yahoo Finance.
“Such products deceive customers into paying for something inauthentic and deter brands from selling on the platform that hosts them because it can erode the value of the real product.”
TikTok’s website states the platform does not “permit the purchase, sale, trade, or solicitation of counterfeit goods”. It offers guidelines on how to identify if a product is counterfeit.
LVMH has taken similar steps to restrict counterfeit products from entering the market. In 2014, the company announced a partnership with Google to ‘develop new ways of engaging consumers online whilst preserving the value of trusted brands and enhancing creativity.’
That same year, the company ended a long-running legal battle with eBay Inc over the sale of counterfeit luxury goods on the online auction website.
The court case ended with an agreement to ‘implement cooperative measures’ to protect intellectual property rights.
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