During the last few months of 2021, over 13,586 counterfeit products were seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agents (CBP) at the Los Angeles Seaport in Long Beach, California. The shipment came in from China, composed of thousands of counterfeit items from designer brands such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Authorities say that, if sold, the retail price of all the seized products would have totaled as much as $30 million.
The CBP’s Director of Field Operations in Los Angeles, Carlos C. Martel, told CBS local news that their officers remain vigilant against further counterfeit items entering the country. Just last year, the CBP managed to seize a total of 26,503 shipments worth around $1.3 billion dollars if they were the genuine articles. Much of this surge in counterfeit products is speculated to have stemmed from third-party sellers operating on E-commerce sites such as Amazon.
With millions of products sold on Amazon, it’s inevitable that users will be spotting a lot of third-party sellers on the site. The number of sales done through third parties on Amazon has gone up to an astounding $300 billion in value, making up a whole 60% of all the sales done on their marketplace. Although counterfeit products are technically banned on the platform, third-party sellers that do deal in these products are easily able to set-up and start selling on the site.
Amazon reported to have removed approximately 10 billion listings for counterfeit items, and eliminated 2 million counterfeits products within their warehouse. Within Congress, a group of Senators have drafted the “Inform Consumers Act” which aims to require online marketplaces to provide more data on the identities of third-party sellers and enforce verification procedures.
Another bill, named the “Shop Safe Act”, is in the works as well, but has met blockages from several big tech companies. Its goal is to open up online marketplaces to lawsuits for sale of counterfeit items, as well as other stipulations to hold these sites accountable for these sales. Tech companies have pushed back, stating that this proposal might bear consequences for the E-Commerce industry.
Senator Richard Durbin, the Senate Majority Whip, was one of the Senators who introduced the legislation. He has stated that the House version of the INFORM act should not be watered down any further as it already represents a compromise between the house and the tech industry. He also went on to rebuff Amazon on what’s seen as a lobbying campaign against the bills.
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