(Source: http://www.skfo.ru/p/up/1291/152629516803772.jpg)

The annual turnover of the shadow segment of the luxury goods market made up 280 billion roubles, whereas the legal segment is estimated at about 250 billion roubles, as calculated by BrandMonitor. Against the background of the continuing decline in household incomes, the sales of fashion brand replicas in the high price segment will only grow, at the same time, fake vendors will move online.

The study of the market of replicas of luxury fashion brands in fashion retail was provided to Kommersant by BrandMonitor – the company that prepared it (BrandMonitor specializes in the protection of intellectual property and the fight against counterfeit products).

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According to BrandMonitor, the volume of sales of replicas of luxury fashion brands makes up 280 billion roubles per year. The main sales channels with the corresponding shares of 40% and 30%, respectively, are shopping centres and clothing markets. Online trade in counterfeit luxury products accounts for about 84 billion roubles, 25 billion roubles of them are the sales through social networks and marketplaces, according to the study.

Customers most often purchase fake T-shirts, sneakers, jeans and bags. In 2018, the sales of luxury fashion brands in Russia grew by 5% - up to 248 billion roubles. Thus, the volume of trade in counterfeit luxury goods may exceed the turnover of the legal market segment by almost 13%. 30-35% of all sales of the global clothing and footwear industry account for copies and replicas; this problem is urgent not only in Russia, as the General Director of FCG Anna Lebsak-Kleimans says.

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The total volume of the Russian market of clothing, footwear and accessories is estimated by FCG at 2.36 trillion roubles. According to the executive director of Rusbrand, Aleksey Popovichev, it is hardly probable that the owners of luxury brand stores face the problem of counterfeit goods. Their audiences do not overlap anywhere: premium brands have a well-established share of solvent buyers, whereas copies are often occasionally purchased by buyers who are not the target audience of retailers of expensive brands, as he states.

However, as Popovichev adds, the owners of luxury brands are still struggling with counterfeits, in order to preserve the value of the brand. The Managing Partner of Vanchugov & Partners, Aleksey Vanchugov, stresses the fact that earlier the sellers of brand copies were located mainly in clothing markets and fairs. But the number of such markets in Moscow has decreased by now, and the sellers of counterfeit goods moved, for example, to small trading centres in small towns of Moscow Oblast. This is explained by the fact that rental rates there are quite favorable, according to Vanchugov. BrandMonitor expects that the volume of trade in counterfeit luxury goods will grow and shift to online stores.