Brand piracy increasing at alarming rate

"The product and brand piracy problem became intensely worse in 2010. According to the European Commission, around 80,000 cases were recorded by German customs last year altogether. This is double the number of cases in the previous year and involves segments with over 103 million products of which most originate from China", states the German Cosmetic Association (VKE).

The luxury cosmetics industry is one of the sectors that have been massively affected by brand piracy for many years. The distribution of counterfeit products is increasing at an alarming rate. Around 1.2 million articles were seized in 2010; 80 percent of the imitations came from China, 10 percent from Turkey and 5 percent from Romania. "For the first time, the European Commission has calculated the sales value of the original products: this amounted to almost 45 million euros for the confiscated products", explains Martin Ruppmann, manager of VKE.

Due to the small size of cosmetic products and the unfortunately limited capacity of customs to examine postal items, it is assumed that there is a much higher number of unreported cases.

About VKE Cosmetic Association

Founded in 1952 in Frankfurt am Main, the VKE Cosmetic Association, Berlin, represents the mutual professional and trade interests of the distributors and manufacturers of selectively sold perfumes and cosmetics in Germany. Today almost 50 German subsidiaries of foreign head offices and domestic cosmetic suppliers are members of the VKE. Together they represent over 200 brands - some of which are world known – and a turnover of around €1.6 bill.