That’s precisely why, as sales and popularity grow, these entrepreneurs must be as concerned with protecting their brand online as they are with growing their reputation. These days, eCommerce enforcement agencies do everything from monitoring the entire World Wide Web for illegitimate sales, to investigating the product sources used by illicit sellers, to deploying the legal tactics necessary to shut them down.
Ultimately, online brand protection is important for fashion entrepreneurs, their fans, and the validity of the online marketplaces themselves. Not only can consumers be injured by knock off products, brands themselves can suffer irreversible damage to their reputation if counterfeiters are using online marketplaces to sell inferior (but similar) goods to the public. There may be no fate worse for a young brand that has expended its founders’ blood, sweat, and tears, only to be brought down by intellectual property thieves looking to make a quick buck off of someone else’s success.
