Temu Sales of Cheap Knockoffs Are Soaring. The Threat to Brands Like Gucci and Hermès.
Temu 的廉价仿冒品销量飙升。对 Gucci 和 Hermès 等品牌的威胁。

“Frugality is definitely cool,” says Gabriella Santaniello, founder and CEO of retail consulting firm A Line Partners. “It’s all over social media right now, whether it’s people saying, ‘I’m on a tight budget,’ or as a backlash against mass consumption.”
“节俭绝对很酷，”零售咨询公司 A Line Partners 的创始人兼首席执行官 Gabriella Santaniello 说。“现在社交媒体上到处都是，无论是人们说，'我的预算很紧张'，还是作为对大众消费的强烈反对。”

Enter the dupe. Super fakes—high-quality replicas nearly indistinguishable from the real thing—have long been available, but can be tricky to source and still cost hundreds of dollars or more. Cheap knockoffs line New York’s Canal Street and other city sidewalks but require in-person browsing. By contrast, online Chinese discounters like Temu now offer a nearly endless supply of ultracheap items that look remarkably similar to fancier goods, even if they don’t stand up to scrutiny.
进入骗局。超级赝品——与真品几乎没有区别的高质量复制品——早已上市，但可能很难找到，而且仍然要花费数百美元或更多。纽约的运河街（Canal Street）和其他城市人行道上到处都是廉价的仿冒品，但需要亲自浏览。相比之下，像 Temu 这样的中国在线折扣店现在提供几乎无穷无尽的超便宜商品，这些商品看起来与更高档的商品非常相似，即使它们经不起审查。

There are blatant counterfeit items of Gucci, Hermès, and Cartier products that don’t pretend to be anything else, with labels and logos to boot. Yet many dupes just look like copies of branded items, existing in a more nebulous legal space.
Gucci、Hermès 和 Cartier 产品有公然的假冒商品，它们没有伪装成其他任何东西，带有标签和标志。然而，许多仿制品看起来就像品牌商品的复制品，存在于一个更加模糊的法律空间中。

Whether users want them to highlight their bargain-hunting bona fides or pass them off as the real thing, dupes are increasingly popular and easier to buy: A tsunami of ubiquitous dupes—often advertised by online influencers—is now just a click away.
无论用户希望他们突出他们讨价还价的真诚，还是将其冒充真实的东西，仿冒品都越来越受欢迎且更容易购买：无处不在的仿制品海啸——通常由在线影响者做广告——现在只需点击一下即可。

Clear numbers are hard to come by, for obvious reasons, but counterfeit goods probably accounted for roughly 2.5% of global trade in recent years, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which seized $2.7 billion in fakes last year alone. And that estimate is conservative, with other agencies putting the figure as high as 3.3%. Brand protection and trademark firm Corsearch projects that knockoffs will reach 5% of worldwide trade by 2030.
出于显而易见的原因，很难获得明确的数字，但根据美国海关和边境保护局的数据，近年来假冒商品可能占全球贸易的 2.5% 左右，仅去年一年就查获了 27 亿美元的假货。这个估计是保守的，其他机构认为这个数字高达 3.3%。品牌保护和商标公司 Corsearch 预计，到 2030 年，仿冒品将达到全球贸易的 5%。

Dupes have become such a problem that the RealReal, a retailer of secondhand luxury goods, opened a fake store/exhibit in June that contained only knockoffs. “Identifying what’s real and what’s fake has never been harder,” said Kristen Naiman, RealReal’s chief creative officer. “[O]ur experts are constantly improving their ability to identify the bogus.”
骗子已经成为一个问题，以至于二手奢侈品零售商RealReal 在 6 月开设了一家只包含仿冒品的假商店/展览。“识别真假从未如此困难，”RealReal 的首席创意官 Kristen Naiman 说。“你们的专家们正在不断提高他们识别假货的能力。”

But for many inflationistas, that’s beside the point. Robin Goodwin, an early adopter who has shopped at Temu for 2½ years, says her co-workers know that nearly every time she wears something new, it’s probably from the discounter. The teaching assistant at the Department of Defense’s Starbase educational program in Michigan used to shop regularly for name brands across price points at individual retailers and department stores, and could still do so, but she “has a hard time spending money” on them when she finds that Temu options are much cheaper without sacrificing much in quality.
但对于许多通胀主义者来说，这无关紧要。在 Temu 购物 2 年半的早期采用者 Robin Goodwin 说，她的同事们知道，几乎每次她穿新衣服时，都可能是从柜台买来的。密歇根州国防部 Starbase 教育计划的助教过去经常在个别零售商和百货公司购买不同价位的名牌商品，现在仍然可以这样做，但当她发现 Temu 选项要便宜得多而不会牺牲太多质量时，她“很难花钱”购买它们。

Social media also makes it easier to pass off dupes as the real thing: If they don’t have to stand up to in-person scrutiny, dupes are an inexpensive way to appear wealthy online. Why spend on a real designer product when more people will see your post than ever see you in person?
社交媒体还使骗子更容易冒充真实的东西：如果他们不必经得起面对面的审查，那么骗子就是在网上显得富有的一种廉价方式。当更多的人会看到您的帖子比以往任何时候都亲自看到您时，为什么还要花钱购买真正的设计师产品呢？

If a consumer knows an item is a knockoff of a branded product “but buys it anyway, isn’t that an existential threat to brands themselves?” asks Bernstein analyst Aneesha Sherman. “One has to only search ‘Temu dupes’ online to find an assortment of haul videos and social-media posts bragging about the compelling dupes that people have scored on Temu—from designer handbags, to makeup, to apparel, to home items. Some people go for the functional; others go for a good-enough prop on social media.”
如果消费者知道某件商品是品牌产品的仿冒品，“但还是买了它，这难道不是对品牌本身的生存威胁吗？“你只需要在网上搜索'Temu 骗子'，就能找到各种各样的视频和社交媒体帖子，吹嘘人们在 Temu 上得分的引人注目的骗子——从名牌手袋到化妆品，到服装，再到家居用品。有些人追求功能性;其他人则在社交媒体上寻找足够好的道具。

Temu says it has taken steps to limit the cheap knockoffs, including requiring sellers to identify themselves and sign agreements stating that they obey the law. It also has a system in place to respond quickly to counterfeiting claims, the company said. “Temu takes decisive action against counterfeit products to protect the intellectual-property rights of legitimate owners,” a Temu spokesperson told Barron’s.
Temu 表示，它已采取措施限制廉价仿冒品，包括要求卖家表明身份并签署协议声明他们遵守法律。该公司表示，它还建立了一个系统，可以快速响应假冒索赔。“Temu 采取果断行动打击假冒产品，以保护合法所有者的知识产权，”Temu 的一位发言人告诉《巴伦周刊》。

Knockoffs are a double-edged sword for luxury brands: Their very existence shows the brands’ desirable cachet, but flattery that’s too faithful can be grounds for copyright infringement. Yet luxury brands are undeniably hurting. And the next generation of customers is at stake. “If young shoppers are getting a good-enough dupe, they’re not saving up and splurging on that first experience, and they might be less brand loyal in the future,” says Harding Loevner portfolio manager Maria Lernerman.
仿冒品对奢侈品牌来说是一把双刃剑：它们的存在本身就显示了品牌令人向往的声望，但过于忠实的奉承可能会成为侵犯版权的理由。然而，不可否认，奢侈品牌正在受到伤害。而下一代客户正处于危险之中。“如果年轻购物者得到了足够好的骗局，他们就不会在第一次体验中攒钱和挥霍，而且他们将来可能会降低对品牌的忠诚度，”Harding Loevner 投资组合经理 Maria Lernerman 说。

For luxury companies, that’s the wrong kind of scarcity.
对于奢侈品公司来说，这是一种错误的稀缺性。

Write to Teresa Rivas at
写信给特蕾莎·里瓦斯（Teresa Rivas） teresa.rivas@barrons.com