An Examination of Counterfeit Sports Products and Their Consequences

This essay examines the pervasive issue of counterfeit sports products, which are substandard goods sold under established brand names without authorization. It highlights the significant financial losses incurred by original brands, estimated at 5-7% of sales, and the erosion of brand reputation. The essay explores the negative impacts on businesses, including job losses and tax revenue losses, as well as the potential health risks to consumers due to the inferior quality of fake products. The rise of e-commerce platforms is identified as a major contributor to the proliferation of these counterfeit goods. The essay proposes the use of Neuro-tags, a technology utilizing AI and cryptographic tags, to verify product authenticity and combat the sale of fake products. The conclusion emphasizes the harm caused by counterfeit products to both businesses and consumers and suggests the adoption of Neuro-tags as a solution.

Running Head: COUNTERFEIT SPORTS PRODUCTS
Counterfeit Sports Products
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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Counterfeit consumer sports products are sports goods that are of substandard quality,
these products are usually sold under a different brand name and they are sold in the market
without the authorization of the original owner of the brand (Xia & Chengb, 2017). Those who
sell those goods often infringe on the legalities such as trademark, copyright or patent of the
original owner of the brand by passing those products as goods that are made by the original
brand member. 5%-7% of the sports product sales are made up by the counterfeit products.
These products cause a lot of problems with the sales of the company and the revenue
loss of the company, these fake products are sold so rampantly that they original companies are
losing their brand name and they loss that they experience is €500 per year. According to
multiple sources, the maximum amounts of sports goods that are sold on the various online
platforms are counterfeit products. Apart from the financial loses that are endured by the
company, there are other problems that are borne by the company like many people lose their
jobs, there are heavy amount of taxes that lost by the government (Falkowski, Olszewska &
Ulatowska, 2015). The original brands have to be pay the taxes that are required and these
counterfeit products do not have to pay any taxes as they sell under the name of the original
brand. Counterfeit sports goods puts the user of those products into health risks, a these products
are made especially for running or doing other physical activities, they are designed according to
the muscles and tissues in a person’s body. They align with the anatomy, hence these fake
products can cause harm to a person because they are low cost and does not take into account the
amount of scientific research that goes behind these products (Chiu, Lee & Won, 2014). The rise
of the sale of these counterfeit products can be attributed to the increase presence of the e-
commerce websites. These websites make it easier for the sellers to hide their identity and sell
fake products. Counterfeit sports goods are made up of subnormal materials. These fake products

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do not go through the same process of quality checks as the original brands do. They have the
chance of getting easily damaged as they are inferior quality.
Sports good manufacturer have a chance of preventing the phenomena of selling fake
products under their brand name. They can use the technology of Neuro-tags. Neuri-tags are an
easily customizable and flexible solution (Laluyan, Pangemanan & Worang, 2017). This
technology is backed by the patent-algorithm and Artificial Intelligence. The Neuro-tags
provides an algorithmically coupled crypto-tags and these tags are to be applied to all sporting
goods. The buyers have the option to scan these tags and check the authenticity of these
products. When the customer sees that there are no tags, they will understand that the product is
fake.
This essay concludes that counterfeit products are not only harmful for the business of the
company but also for the consumer who is buying the product. The companies follow a lot of
scientific techniques and these fake products do not adhere to these techniques. The use of
Neuro-tags is a way that this problem can be solved.

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References
Chiu, W., Lee, K. Y., & Won, D. (2014). Consumer behavior toward counterfeit sporting goods.
Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 42(4), 615-624.
Falkowski, A., Olszewska, J., & Ulatowska, J. (2015). Are look-alikes confusing? The
application of the DRM paradigm to test consumer confusion in counterfeit cases.
Marketing Letters, 26(4), 461-471.
Laluyan, W. N., Pangemanan, S. S., & Worang, F. G. (2017). The effect of advertising,
perceived quality and brand awareness on consumer purchase intention (Case study:
Adidas sport shoes). Jurnal EMBA: Jurnal Riset Ekonomi, Manajemen, Bisnis dan
Akuntansi, 5(2).
Xia, E. A. C., & Chengb, K. T. G. (2017). The Determinants of Purchase Intention Counterfeit
Sportswear. Journal of Applied Structural Equation Modeling, 1(1), 13-26.