Browsing the shelves at H&M or Shein, you could be forgiven for thinking some designs look familiar. “Fast-fashion brands are well-known for sailing close to the wind with their branding and designs… straying into trade mark, design and / or copyright infringement,” noted a recent piece in Fashion United.

And direct to consumer marketplaces from Etsy to Amazon often feature even more blatant counterfeits of brands large and small, some even listed under the brand’s trademarked name. These aren’t Canal Street knockoffs, either: consumers are often tricked into thinking they are purchasing name-brand goods, unaware of their counterfeit status. By 2020, counterfeit sales had reached an astounding $1.8 trillion, according to the Global Brand Counterfeiting Report.

What’s a new fashion label or designer to do?

For Sarah Kauss, the surprise was how quickly counterfeiters picked up her designs for the new S’well water bottle. Heading to her first factory in China, Kauss stopped by a trade show and was appalled to see her young brand, not yet available in stores and without staff, represented with a fully-staffed tradeshow booth and plentiful items for sale. Despite multiple cease-and-desist threats from her lawyers, the counterfeits continued to flood the market – especially after she had launched her brand.

Even the factory in China seemed to be in on the act. Employees uncovered a Canadian ecommerce brand selling bottles S’well had rejected and thought had been destroyed. That lawsuit is ongoing. (The whole sordid story is set out in a depressing Medium post from Marker.)

The counterfeit challenge is multi-pronged for fashion labels:

1. Fast fashion brands replicate designs as soon as they appear, selling close approximations under their label.

2. Other companies try to duplicate your design, even selling it under your name online.

3. Unscrupulous manufacturers and designers take your patented treasures and sell the designs – or the finished pieces. You could end up providing the design, molds and even financing for your competition.

What can you do about it? At Insider Creations, our team has robust anti-counterfeit measures in place starting from our first conversation. A template NDA, or non-disclosure agreement, ensures that anything you share with us remains confidential. Our contracts ensure that your designs belong to you, whether designed by our expert team or provided to us already complete. And we own many of our own facilities and partner only with those who meet or exceed our stringent IP (intellectual property) guidelines.

Of the three main ways counterfeits enter the market, our process seeks to ease your mind about the most common – devious designers and manufacturers.

Though we can’t force the fashion market to reform overnight, we can do our part to make it a little better for our customers.

This story is cross-posted on Medium.