Carousell launches new anti-counterfeit programme
New anti-counterfeit programme by online marketplace will allow brands to directly remove listings of brand replicas
A new anti-counterfeit programme launched by online marketplace Carousell will allow brands to directly remove listings of brand replicas from the platform with zero processing time.
The Carousell Rights Owners Programme (Crop), which piloted in December last year, has taken down 13,000 listings in the nine months since its introduction.
Officially announced yesterday, the programme already counts several high-profile brands among its partners, including Nike, Grab and luxury group company Kering, which owns brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta.
Carousell said in a press release: "Crop provides assurance to both brands, whose rights are more closely protected, and users, who can deal with greater confidence in the marketplace platform."
The site's counterfeit policy currently prohibits the sale of fake products, replicas or counterfeits and the creation of content that violates any intellectual property rights.
But prior to Crop, there was a longer process from the flagging of an item to the actual takedown, as its URL had to be first submitted to Carousell's brand protection team for processing.
Ms Serena Darcel Chin, Carousell's legal head, said: "We want to create a trusted marketplace platform and protect Carousellers from inadvertently purchasing counterfeits or unauthorised goods, while at the same time protecting brands' rights.
"Crop allows us to proactively address both these issues seamlessly, eliminating any delay in action altogether."
She explained that now, once a listing has been deemed counterfeit and removed directly by the brand through Crop, the seller will automatically receive an e-mail to notify them of the takedown due to their item's infringement of intellectual property (IP) rights.
PRIORITY
"Trust and safety continue to be a key priority for Carousell. Carousell has been collaborating with and supporting the police's efforts in combating the sale of counterfeit goods on its platform," said Ms Su Lin Tan, vice-president of operations.
Since its launch in Singapore in August 2012, Carousell has faced many incidences of e-commerce scams, including significant numbers of counterfeit products being passed off as the real deal.
Just last month, a 28-year-old man sold counterfeit items - including sneakers - and cheated 18 people out of $10,780 in total.
According to the police annual statistics released in February, e-commerce scams increased to 2,125 cases last year, up by 11.4 per cent from 1,907 cases in 2017.
About 70 per cent of them took place on Carousell.
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