Amazon has expanded its product serialisation service “Transparency" to multiple countries including India in order to deal with counterfeiting. Others where the service is now available are France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, and Canada. Under this service, Amazon provides brands with a unique code for every unit manufactured. These codes are verified when an order is placed to ensure authenticity. Amazon had first launched Transparency in US in 2017. Using Transparency, every time one of these products is ordered in Amazon’s stores, it scans and verifies the code to ensure only authentic units are delivered to the customers. Brands can also use Transparency to communicate unique unit-level information, including manufacturing date, manufacturing place, or other product information. Amazon claims that customers can also use a mobile app to scan the code and verify authenticity regardless of where they purchased their units. It claims to have over 4,000 brands are enrolled under this service in US and has stopped over 250,000 counterfeits of Transparency-enabled products from reaching customers. In November 2018, a LocalCircles survey revealed that 19% of total 27,000 participants received a counterfeit or fake product from an e-commerce site in the previous 6 months. Meanwhile, 37% of the respondents said Snapdeal had the highest percentage of fake products while 22% said it was Flipkart, 21% said Paytm Mall, and 20% said Amazon. Previous cases of e-commerce counterfeiting In October 2018, India’s drug regulator DCGI had issued notices to Amazon and Flipkart for allegedly selling "spurious and adulterated" cosmetics including imported brands.…
