Counterfeit economy ‘boosted’ by social media
27/05/2016
Social Media and Luxury Goods Counterfeit examined around 150,000 posts on photo-sharing social networking site Instagram that were tagged with luxury brand names such as #chanel or #LouisVuitton. It found that approximately 20% of them actually featured fake goods, mostly from accounts based in China, Russia and Malaysia.
The researchers behind the study identified 20,000 counterfeit good accounts, from which more than 140,000 images were published within a three-day period. These posts are often accompanied with contact information so that buyers can get in touch with the seller. This then contributes to a $29 billion impact on the luxury goods sector each year, according to the study.
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