Unexplained Sales Declines or Market Share Loss
Could your products have been copied and are now being sold on online marketplaces without your permission or knowledge? We all think that this couldn't possibility happen to us, that this type of thing really isn't that common. However unfortunately this is becoming very common practice. Best selling products are often copied overseas and sold with a different name, sometimes using the original creators photography.
But what are the signs that this might be happening to your business and what to do about it if you find out that your design is being sold without your permission?
The first thing to consider is, have you had a reduction in sales recently? This might be a dip that you have thought might be the current spending climate or a product reaching the end of its life scan. Or perhaps your product is being imitated.
Customer Feedback Highlighting Confusing Similarities
The second clue to potential infringing online listings are messages from potential or current customers asking about bad reviews or complaining about the quality of a product. We have experienced a number of businesses that have had customers contact them to comment on how the product didn't match the description or that they were concerned that an online marketplace was full of poor reviews of the product. Customers were worried that products brought from their website would be of the same standard.
Increased Customer Support Inquiries or Complaints
The third give away is that you may have received a customer email to inform you that they think your product has been copied by another company.
Don't ignore any of these signs and just bury your head in the sand - they won't go away by themselves. In fact, the problem will continue to grow if not dealt with.
How to Monitor and Protect Your Brand from Copycats
So how do you check to see if your product has in fact been copied? To check if your photography has been copied, it is always helpful to do a google image search of your material regularly. The coping of photography is most common from Etsy stores however it happens all over the internet. If you find you photography on sites such as AliExpress or Temu, then it's time to take action.
Another method to check on your products is to type key words into AliExpress and Temu and see if your design can be seen. Key words are often trickier as copies will often be named for search terms and the title will be a list of words rather than a sentence.
Unfortunately, if you find one infringement on one platform, the chances are there will be more on different platforms. If you find yourself in this position. You have two options. You can begin to submit the removal requests yourself (check out our handy 'how to' guide to marketplace removals here) or you can contact us for help.
IP Moat.ai is a platform designed to give you a dashboard to find and remove listings that infringe on your IP from a range of online marketplaces. The best thing is, it's free to find those infringing listings. All you need to do is enter your IP. Alternatively, drop us an email with any questions at hello@IPMoat.ai.
