Tackling Counterfeit

A duplicate product jeopardizes the luck of businesses worldwide over violating patent rights and causing immense commercial wound. Hence, it has to change into basic for brands to ensure their disgraces opposed to duplication. Development of new package of the product always comes with the risk of counterfeiting, sometimes that could affect health, company reputation and goodwill.Customer buying intent also goes down with the chance of more duplicate products a company or a service provides. A method could be explored on this basis such that consumers can easily predict counterfeit for their daily need items available in the market and companies based upon that feedback can further improve the process and keep consumers in the confidence loop.

I am making assumptions here that since the O4S works with brands to serialize their products uniquely at the time of manufacturing and each product gets a unique barcode/QR code to get it identified, the potential solutions can be system where both the consumers and/or company sales rep/distributor/retailer for the brand can use or enable the services of a QR code provided by the original equipment manufacturer or in this case fulfilled by O4S to check whether the code corresponds to the digital information such as manufacture date/factory/part description and batch which fraudulent products fail to capture as they infiltrate into retail chain not through oems.Another solution can be a blockchain based app which updates the chain in real time whenever a fraudulent item is encountered and alerts consumer but we can drop it for now since serializing and QR code seems more practical and already done by O4S.

Let’s assume Devansh is a consumer who we are profiling him and collecting his data while tackling counterfeit products.

He has a smartphone which can be on any operating device like android/mac as long as it supports QR scanning

A mobile application or a feature which can scan QR codes or an internal scan app provided by O4S

Is made aware of the scan if and when the product arrives which in turns also boosts the brand value

Company which employs the system so that it can collect consumer data and ensure the credibility of the product

A tracking system which will let the company updated about the product at every step of its journey and a scan code authentication process is ensured at every step

SMS gateway and internal QR code scanner for employees and consumers so that the link of tracking and updates can be sent to both the parties

A database where after each scan is completed an entry is made wrt to consumer details and feedback

Scan the QR code on the product/item when the delivery rep/sales rep presents you with your delivery using any code scanner application. You can alternatively ask the person to help you with the process through his/her phone application.

You will be receiving the scan details along with a check mark sign that will enlist every detail of the product along with it’s batch details and manufactured date and origin.

An SMS will be sent to you asking for the feedback where you can send the results and your comments which will be sent to counterfeit detection team/OEM.

You will then receive an authentication confirmation from the team and details about the package genuinity and location of its inventory

Sign on the phone of the delivery rep to confirm the above steps and this will also help keep you in loop with offers and in turn if you want brand to store your details

When customers receive their orders, they scan the codes on the products using the inbuilt app or QR code scanner to confirm the product is authentic. In the process, the company gets another chance to show promotions for the brand, including information on points, loyalty programs, and other rewards. Each code is unique to each product, and scanning the code “burns” it so it cannot be used more than once. It is evident that customer participation in this exercise is a must and therefore they can be encouraged to register their purchase and details with the companies to get further discounts and offers. The process also ensures limiting the counterfeiting as it will be unprofitable and illegal to trade in code enabled environment, further if the company receives a copy of used code or invalid code than it can take actions to alert the particular business unit and investigate further.

Goal of the process - To streamline it in such a way that both company and the user don’t have to worry about counterfeit products and the technology can handle it easily along with better consumer participation and dedicated system for oem to manage both consumer satisfaction and brand reputation.

*Marketer Goal : Revenue increase for retailers and more space for promotions and offers

*BIZ Goal : Increase user Engagement

*BIZ Goal : Improve brand trust, Eliminate Counterfeit Products,Revenue increase due to Service.

I would be prioritizing my metrics based on biz goals since they are the primary objectives

Discoverability : % of Users who have used the scanner service/app at least once → Awareness

Discoverability : % of Users who have used the SMS gateway to authorize and send the details → Willingness

Discoverability : % of Users in (2) who have at least engaged with products wrt to metrics described below to know more about the info of shipment

Engagement : % of the scanned products users open again saved in the checkout page to know more about the manufacture/origin/batch details about the product

Engagement : Amount of time spent in the process (less the better) and amount of the time user spends on the application

Monetization : % of Users signing up and % of Users sending their info to receive offers and updates from the brand

Monetization : MAU boost and % of revenue growth (MOM) after using the service

Retention : % of Brands which retain the service and % of Users from (1) which have used the service again, provided it is eligible.

Feedback: Delivery Feedback from the sales rep and effect on ratings(MOM) of the brand after using the service.