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TikTok is expanding its e-commerce capabilities with the aim of making online shopping more seamless for its users, but it’s led to the rise of fake beauty products, as fraudulent sellers target shoppers looking for a good deal.
Cosrx, a Seoul-based skincare brand that has become a cult favourite among K-beauty enthusiasts, has observed fake versions of its products being sold on TikTok, which has been testing its Shop feature in the UK since September 2021, APAC region countries including Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore since 2022, and has just launched in the US this September. “We have [seen a] rise in counterfeit products being sold, alongside the current era of beauty ‘dupes’, as shoppers seek to save money on trending products,” says Julia Marinkovich, who manages Cosrx’s UK business.
TikTok has launched its Shop feature in the US and plans to market it aggressively. Can the social media platform make social shopping work where others have failed — and what are the implications for fashion and beauty?
The impact on Cosrx has been significant. “Fake products not only [cause] a monetary effect in loss of sales [but] we also experience the time wastage of administration, logistics and freight with returns [as] customers seek refunds for counterfeit products that do not do as they promise or create skin irritations,” Marinkovich explains. “In most cases, unsuspecting consumers will turn to the genuine brand for compensation or to complain.”
Getting more bang for your buck is a concept that has been popularised by creators on TikTok, and several have gone viral for sharing the best dupes (cheap alternatives to higher-priced or premium products that do not generally replicate trademarked details, meaning that they are legal). To date, the hashtag #dupe has 5.6 billion views on the platform. Most beauty dupes are products that aim to deliver a similar result. For example, Elf Cosmetics’s $16.95 Halo Glow Liquid Filter is considered by some creators as a dupe for Charlotte Tilbury’s often sold-out $44 Flawless Filter Complexion Booster.
TikTok Shop operates like an open marketplace, so anyone with a verified account can list goods. The products do not pass through inspection prior to selling, and are easily discoverable: they can be searched for by TikTok users via the Shop tab, or appear as links in videos and live-stream events — posted by merchants or creators who can earn a commission through affiliate links — that are thrust onto a user’s feed by the algorithm. TikTok charges a fee of 5 per cent on all Shop purchases.
Beauty trends and products that go viral on TikTok Shop often become cult items that sell out globally, in part thanks to the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt trend (72.2 billion views). However, that ease of discoverability is a double-edged sword, experts say. “TikTok Shop can transform what’s normally a 15-minute scroll session into a virtual aisle or website browser of any favourite beauty retailer. It allows users to add products to their carts within seconds without ever swiping out of the app,” says Brittany Menefield, account supervisor of connected commerce at PR firm Edelman. The challenge is that many of TikTok’s users have developed a dupe mindset, and the platform has a sub-community dedicated to finding and sharing such products, she says.
TikTok Shop has clear anti-counterfeit policies that strictly forbid the promotion or sales of knockoffs (content that violates someone else’s copyrights, trademarks or other intellectual property rights). In 2022, TikTok launched the Intellectual Property Protection Centre (IPPC) for brands to upload their own IP rights documentation and search for product listings that may infringe their IP. Once a copyright or trademark report is filed through the platform, TikTok’s notice and take-down period is three working days.
“TikTok Shop is a destination for both established and emerging beauty brands to be discovered and sell their products directly to our community. Addressing counterfeit products is an industry-wide challenge, which is why any fake or unauthorised replicas of an authentic product are forbidden on TikTok Shop and will be removed if found. We make this clear in our policies, which all merchants must adhere to,” a spokesperson tells Vogue Business.
Online marketplaces have taken a stronger stance against fake products in recent years. Amazon, for example, has been investing in machine learning and automated systems to detect potential counterfeits. Ebay has also been ramping up its authentication investments: in June, it acquired Certilogo, a provider of AI-powered apparel authentication, and also added streetwear to the list of categories it is able to authenticate. In April, it introduced its ‘Certified by Brand’ luxury resale programme, where brands can authenticate the sale of their secondhand items.
However, brands still report seeing advertisements for illegal beauty items through online search results and content feeds. “There are still instances where counterfeit vendors are slipping through,” says Menefield. “With an open vendor format, this is somewhat inevitable.”
Customers who may not be able to tell the difference between a replica and the original product are at risk, especially in beauty, warns Gavin Terry, lead officer for intellectual property at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI). There is no guarantee that the product has undergone quality control and it may potentially contain unknown, or not properly labelled, ingredients that could be harmful for some customers, he explains. Unsafe products can also damage consumer trust and brand equity, he adds. It’s in a platform’s interest to work with brands to prevent fakes, Terry believes. “If more people sell fakes on the platform, it could undermine the whole integrity of the channel.”
A vibe shift is starting to occur among creators. Instead of sharing cheaper alternatives of popular luxury products, several are now giving advice for spotting a real product apart from a counterfeit, and recommending reliable online platforms that sell hard-to-find or often-sold-out beauty products. These guides are widely viewed and shared; for example, videos by TikTok creator Zoe Rammie that contain tips on spotting certain K-beauty fakes have all been viewed by several million users. Rammie also shares online retailer suggestions for consumers looking to purchase K-beauty brands from outside of South Korea.
Who’s responsible for tackling fakes?
The onus is currently on the brand to speak up if a counterfeit of its products are sold online. CTSI’s Terry points to the 2009 court dispute that French beauty giant L’Oréal lost against Ebay, when it claimed the online marketplace was jointly liable for trademark infringements committed by its users. “The legal position is that an online provider cannot be expected to proactively identify fake products. Social media channels fall within the definition of online providers,” Terry explains, but adds that if a platform has been notified of product infringement, it has “a duty to remove it as quickly as possible”.
The brands interviewed by Vogue Business say they are proactively monitoring online platforms for counterfeits — although that requires significant investment. Price is one giveaway of a fake product. “Counterfeiters tend to discount because they want to incur a sale. Traditionally that’s a quick tell for us if we see our products sold much below the suggested retail price (SRP),” says Jay Elarar, CEO of hair and bodycare brand Moroccanoil, which has been battling with counterfeits of its products across multiple platforms. Among its most copied products is the original hair treatment, which costs £36.45 for a 100ml bottle.
At Sephora, a 100ml bottle of Cosrx’s Advanced Snail Mucin Power Essence costs £25, but on some platforms it is being marketed by private sellers for as little as £4.99, raising questions about authenticity. Shoppers that buy a fake product will be able to tell the difference, Cosrx’s Marinkovich believes. “The Snail Mucin Power Essence , and also the Snail All-In-One Cream, are very popular counterfeit products as the consistency of the serum is easily masked with other cosmetic ingredients to look and feel like the real snail mucin. However, the main difference can be seen in the flow of the serum. The fakes are more runny and watery.”
Young consumers are savvy and quickly learning to avoid buying products at a steep discount because “they know that something is up”, says Elarar. That doesn’t deter unauthorised sellers, some of which now sell closer to SRP, to appear more trustworthy, he says. Brands with easily identifiable hero products tend to be an attractive target for fraudulent sellers because “they can pick out a single SKU or two that are high movement, high price point and generally bring in a higher margin,” he warns.
Smart solutions
Some brands see this moment as an opportunity to educate consumers. In May, Lululemon held a "dupe swap" in Los Angeles; customers were encouraged to bring in fake versions of the brand’s widely copied Align leggings and exchange it for an authentic pair for free. The aim was to prove the value of the real product, but the approach also helped to increase brand engagement and loyalty, says Menefield of Edelman, which worked with Lululemon on the campaign.
Last week, Olaplex launched an unboxing campaign, where it recruited over 100 influencers to promote the fictitious product, Oladupé – intended to be a copycat of one of its hero products, the Hair Perfector No. 3. The first 160 consumers to register their details on Oladupe.com were sent a bottle of Oladupé, which turned out to be a bottle of Olaplex’s No 3. The joke was revealed to shoppers once they had gone to the website and signed up for a bottle of the fake product. “While imitation is the highest form of flattery, we wanted to have fun with the fact that the Olaplex brand can be imitated but never replicated,” said CMO Charlotte Watson in a statement.
Smart labelling technology is emerging as another solution. “Lately, we’ve been thinking a lot about how to solve the problem of all these fake products and make it easier for customers to distinguish them from the genuine ones,” a Beauty of Joseon spokesperson tells Vogue Business. The brand recently launched an app that lets users verify the authenticity of products by scanning a barcode, and is in the process of rolling it out for future production runs. Beauty of Joseon added that it was also taking action against unauthorised sellers behind counterfeit goods.
A wave of startups have emerged that offer digital ID capabilities to help brands track products beyond the point of sale, which can help with authentication. Moroccanoil has hidden codes on its labels that distributors and retailers are mandated to scan before they sell, says Elarar. “We can stop diversion because we can track the product all the way from the manufacturer to the end consumer.” That requires retail platforms to comply. Many have been “open to working with us to keep their markets clean, because it’s also in their benefit”, he explains. “If a customer gets a counterfeit product, the experience is detrimental to the brand as well as the platform, because they may not be willing to buy [from both parties] anymore.”
Brands could use this moment to remind its customers to shop only from official channels like its own website or a reputable retailer, suggests Edelman’s Menefield. They should also prioritise proof of trademark, patent or copyright and have them readily available on platform-specific databases, such as Amazon Brand Registry or TikTok Shop Brand Authorisation, in order to quickly remove any fake products that emerge, she advises.
Elarar sees a bigger opportunity for brands to work with key opinion leaders to spread awareness. Influencers have “a reputation to protect”, so it’s mutually beneficial that they don’t end up accidentally linking to a fake product, he says. “There are some bad actors out there but the good thing is that consumers are getting smarter and they’re more aware of what’s going on,” Moroccanoil’s Elarar adds. “We see that they tend to buy from creators that have a strong reputation they trust, rather than just a large following. The customer is becoming smarter.”
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