Price is a bad counterfeit indicator

A price tag is not proof of authenticity—or compliance. We reviewed 290 confirmed counterfeit and/or regulatory violation test purchases by IPSecure users and compared the product MAP/Expected retail price against the test purchase prices. More than half—51%—were purchased at or above the supplied MAP / expected retail benchmark. That included 40% of counterfeit purchases and 66% of purchases with regulatory violations. These bad actor-created product offers were often selling at prices above the brand. For brands, the lesson is straightforward: investigations focused exclusively on below-MAP offers would have excluded 51% of the purchases because price is a poor indicator of authenticity.