The Rise of Dupes
Mark Barrett
Senior Customer Success Manager | 10+ Years in Brand Protection | Thought Leader
If you’re a regular user of social media it’s likely you’ve seen an ad for a product which looks nearly identical in design to that from an iconic brand. If you’re thinking that’s a ‘fake’ or a ‘counterfeit’ you would be wrong as what lies beneath is a story of how almost two decades of anti-counterfeit enforcement combined with the influence of social media led to the creation of a new class of infringement known as the ‘dupe’.
What is a Dupe?
The term ‘dupe’ is an abbreviation for duplicate and refers to a product which copies the design of another product. In contrast to a counterfeit, dupes do not feature the brand name or trademark of the product they’re copying and focus only on replicating the design. The other key difference is one of price as dupes are often priced significantly less than the product from which they took their inspiration. Dupes are most commonly found in the West whereas China has an equivalent concept known as ‘pingti’ (‘平提’).
Dupes are most frequently found in the luxury and fashion industries but products which copy the design of another brand can also be found in a variety of other industries. For some brands, particularly those outside of luxury, the issue may be more to do with the function of the product being copied rather than the design.
Why Have Dupes Become so Popular?
Dupes are by no means a new phenomenon but using data from Google [1] we can see just how popular dupes have become over the last few years.
In the examples above for Tiffany, Versace and Pandora we can see the relative popularity of dupe-related searches from the beginning of 2020 until the end of 2024. For all three brands the relative popularity of each search term rose from almost zero in early 2020 to peak popularity within the last twelve months. There is also a notable seasonal effect with all three brands seeing a spike around December 2023 and December 2024 suggesting dupes are also popular gifts.
Social media has arguably been the primary driver in the recent popularisation of dupes. Short-video platforms have built a community around #dupe where users find and share lookalikes from their favourite brands by posting reviews which compare dupes to their branded counterparts. TikTok is currently the most active platform for sharing dupe-related content but Instagram and others have also become popular alternatives. Unlike counterfeits, social media platforms have become something far more important than just a sales channel for dupes. They have given birth to a what is often referred to as ‘dupe culture’ which doesn’t just share lookalike products with other buyers but encourages people to endorse products which copy those of world-renowned brands. Consumer attitudes towards dupes are also very different to that of counterfeits. Knowingly purchasing a counterfeit is generally perceived as an unethical action and not something most people would promote. However, in dupe culture there is a sense of achievement for finding a nearly identical product for a fraction of the cost. In the US, it’s estimated that 31% of adults have intentionally purchased a dupe [2] whereas the figure is only around 10% for counterfeits [3].
Elsewhere in e-commerce there has been another important trend over the last few years. Pinduoduo, a Chinese online retailer, embarked on a mission to sell domestically-produced products in the West at extremely competitive prices leading to the creation of Temu in 2022. If you’ve ever browsed Temu you’ll know that many of the products resemble those of well-known brands but nowhere on the listing or physical product will you find the brand’s trademark. Shein, one of Temu’s biggest competitors, has also grown rapidly in the US and Europe by adopting a very similar business strategy; produce highly similar designs of products from well-known brands at extremely low prices in a new era of fast fashion. Unsurprisingly, both companies have faced numerous cases of legal action such as Uniqlo’s claim of copyright infringement against Shein for copying one of their popular shoulder bags. Despite the often low quality products found on marketplaces such as Temu and Shein, this hasn’t stopped consumers flocking to their platforms with Temu recording 167 million active users per month in Q1 of 2024 [4]. Their popularity and price competition has been so powerful that Amazon, one of the most dominant e-commerce brands in the West, has been forced to offer its own platform known as Amazon Haul in order to compete.
Beyond e-commerce there are also economic factors which have affected consumers in almost all countries in the last few years following the cost of living crisis. Luxury brands have been impacted by falling disposable incomes in many of their largest markets loosing more than 10% of their customer base since 2022 [5]. The demand for their products is as strong as ever but with squeezed incomes in much of the world this is just one more reason many have looked towards dupes as an alternative.
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The Evolution of Online Brand Protection
However, it’s not just changes in consumer behaviour which have paved the way for dupes. In the early 2000s the internet was finding it’s way into more and more households but only around 10% of the global population were connected [6]. The internet was a new technology and many were dubious around whether it would last let alone thinking about what the risks could be from the perspective of intellectual property. The result was that many brands did not yet see online brand protection as a priority. For counterfeiters, this meant limited enforcement on the products they were beginning to sell online. Social media was effectively non-existent and many of the online marketplaces growing in popularity did not have adequate processes for reporting and removing IP infringements. Fast forward to the 2020s and virtually every brand now realises the importance of online brand protection with many of the largest luxury brands having operated comprehensive enforcement programs for well over ten years. For counterfeiters who have remained in the business they realised that listing a product bearing a brand’s trademark would quickly be removed with some marketplaces and social media platforms running their own proactive screening measures. The solution adopted by many infringers was to simply stop using the trademark that was being utilised for enforcement. This led to a slow decline in the number of counterfeits and a steady increase in lookalikes.
For brand owners, the transition from counterfeits to dupes comes with it’s own complexities and costs. Anti-counterfeit enforcement did not typically require registering new IP as enforcement was based on the trademarks which brand owners had previously obtained in most major territories. Conversely anti-lookalike enforcement requires intellectual property protecting the design of a product, usually in the form of a design right or figurative trademark, which many brands do not have for every product in every territory. This is often further complicated for brands such as watchmakers where there may be several designs protecting different elements of a single product. Ultimately this means that effective enforcement requires a feedback loop to understand which products or designs are being copied the most and in which territories in order to inform future decisions around IP strategy.
The Future of Dupes
Some have speculated that dupe culture is a fad but I do not agree. Lookalike products are not a new phenomenon and have already been seen for a number of years as a result of nearly two decades’ worth of enforcement by the largest brands in anti-counterfeiting. The landscape has gradually changed as infringers have been forced to adapt with an ever increasing clampdown by brand owners on the sale of counterfeits. Lookalike products have quietly been growing in the shadow of counterfeits for several years but the growth of marketplaces like Temu and Shein—and particularly the explosion of TikTok and other social media platforms—has helped conceptualise these products as ‘dupes’. If infringers and consumers have understood the concept of a dupe now is the time for brand owners to do the same a recognise anti-lookalike enforcement as a key component of online brand protection strategy.
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1 个月Interesting, thanks for your service??
Digital Brand Consultant at CSC Digital Brand Services
1 个月Really insightful, this was a prevalent topic discussed at the recent ACG - The Anti-Counterfeiting Group conference. Interesting to read your thoughts on this issue.
Product Security Investigation & Enforcement Manager, APAC
1 个月Interesting
Online Brand Protection | Domain Management | DNS Security | Digital Certificates | Anti Fraud
1 个月Very informative, thanks Mark!