September 20, 2018
The Washington Post had a piece on how Trump’s tariffs on goods produced in China is promoting unauthorized copies of many fashion items. The reason is that his 10 percent tariff is hitting the brand products, but the unauthorized copies are often smuggled in and escape the tariff. This increases the price differential by 10 percent of the brand product price, giving people more incentive to buy the unauthorized copy. Since these companies depend on brand loyalty, the impact could be lasting if many buyers decide that they are just as happy with an unauthorized product that may cost a small fraction of the price of the brand product.
This piece is sloppy in repeatedly referring to the unauthorized copies as “counterfeits.” If the product is a true counterfeit than it is being sold as the brand product. In that case, the customer is being deceived and paying a higher price to get something they are not getting.
That does not seem to be the case with these products. People buy them knowing that they are not the brand product, but they willingly do so to save the money.
This is not just a semantic distinction. Since the customer is being deceived by an actual counterfeit, they would be allies in cracking down on sellers. On the other hand, they benefit from being able to buy an unauthorized copy since they pay considerably less than they would for the brand product.
This is a simple distinction which reporters should be able to make in covering issues like this.
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