Where Is Kooba Handbags Made

Counterfeiters aim at lower brand names

Counterfeiters aim at lower brand names

After years of knocking off luxury products such as $2, 800 Louis Vuitton handbags, criminals are discovering that there is money to be made in faking the more ordinary, such as $295 Kooba bags and $140 Ugg boots. In California, authorities recently seized a shipment of counterfeit Angel Soft toilet paper.

Counterfeiters aim at lower brand names

In this economy, even counterfeiters are trading down.

After years of knocking off luxury products such as $2, 800 Louis Vuitton handbags, criminals are discovering that there is money to be made in faking the more ordinary, such as $295 Kooba bags and $140 Ugg boots. In California, authorities recently seized a shipment of counterfeit Angel Soft toilet paper.

The shift in the counterfeiting industry, which costs U.S. businesses an estimated $200 billion a year, plays to recession-weary consumers looking for downmarket deals, authorities say. And it has been fueled in part by factories sitting idle in China.

Ugg Schuhe

Almost 80percent of the counterfeit goods seized in the United States last year were produced in China, where the downturn in legitimate exports during the recession left many factories looking for goods in some cases, any goods to produce.

If there is demand, there will be supply, said John Spink, associate director of the Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection Program at Michigan State University. In China, he said, Its all of a sudden them saying, We have low capacity. What can we make?

Any savvy shopper knows a Louis Vuitton bag selling for $100 cannot be the real thing. But when NeimanMarcus.com, an authorized retailer for Kooba bags, sells them for $295, and a small website sells them for $190, a deal-hunting consumer could think she has scored a bargain. (She hasnt. The $190 bag is a fake.)

The counterfeiters also are lifting photos and text from legitimate websites, further fooling some shoppers.

Designers and trade experts said the downmarket trend in counterfeiting became more noticeable in the past year, as counterfeiters got more inventive.

The field is big: The total value of counterfeit goods seized by U.S. customs officials increased by more than 25percent each year from 2005 to 2008, using the governments fiscal calendar. In fiscal 2009, as imports overall dropped by 25percent, the value of counterfeit products seized dropped by only 4percent, to $260.7million.

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