American pop royalty Taylor Swift is riding a wave of success and popularity in China. With it comes a surge of demand in related merchandise, fueling the market of authorized Taylor Swift products in the country.
Among the products that e-commerce peddlers sell are pirated autographed guitars and fake perfume.
To battle rampant counterfeiting, Swift plans on launching her own clothing line in China in cooperation with JD.com Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
According to Nashville-based branding company Heritage66Company, the singer's strategy is to curb sales of pirated products by selling products that do have rights to use her name. Heritage66Company will bring the clothing line to China.
Chinese fans will be able to get their hands on official Taylor Swift-branded $60 designer T-shirts starting August through JD.com and Alibaba's Tmall marketplace, according to Kate Liegey, chief operating officer of Heritage66. Taylor Swift will also launch a women's collection exclusively on JD.com come September, with clothes retailing from $100 to $120.
Liegey also added that all products feature antipiracy hanging tags. This will enable customers to make sure that the product they bought are authentic.
Taylor Swift is not the only one partnering with e-commerce companies to halt the sale of knockoffs in China. The trade group American Apparel and Footwear Association, which represents clothing makers, has already issued an open letter addressed to Jack Ma of Alibaba regarding the company's apparent lack of effort in controlling fake goods on its site.
"It's time for Chinese companies to say, 'We don't want to be known for piracy anymore,'" added Liegey, who has been working with Alibaba and JD.com to remove counterfeits from their site.
Spokespeople for JD.com and Alibaba, for their part, are dedicated to fight the rampant selling of counterfeits.