“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Oscar Wilde said that over a hundred years ago — he wasn’t wrong then, and he isn’t wrong today. Luxury brands lose a whopping $50 billion every year to counterfeiters hoping to capitalize on the greatness of a legacy of iconic, trend-leading designs.
So, what if we told you there was a way to give your products an encrypted seal of authentication easily accessible to customers? And what if that same technology could also skyrocket your customer brand engagement? Would it blow your mind to know that the solution is already right under your nose? Step this way, friend. Let’s get into the world of NFC tagging…
NFC tags in the world of retail
NFC (near-field communication) might be a newcomer to retail tagging, but it's been super popular with global banking titans and tech giants for years. NFC chips are encoded end-to-end, making them the go-to solution for mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, which use turbocharged versions of the tech for super secure transactions.
Read: Understanding NFC technology
Embedding an encrypted NFC inlay into your accessories and footwear could create a more robust authentication method for your products, making them much harder for counterfeiters to mess with. Moreover, embedding the inlay into the product itself makes it hard to remove without causing damage.
Read: How NFC technology can boost customer engagement
Luxury brand authentication with NFC tags
1. Empower customers
Counterfeit products swindle unwitting customers as much as they do luxury brands. Imagine saving up for a designer purchase only to receive a fake for your hard-earned money. Not in this town, bub!
By adding NFC technology to your RFID intelligent labels, you put the power directly into the customers’ hands. A single smartphone tap will allow every loyal customer to authenticate items themselves rather than paying to have an independent expert do it for them. It’ll also help them safeguard the value of their investment should they choose to resell in future.
2. Detect tampering
Anyone specializing in wines and spirits will be well aware of gray market sellers diluting or duplicating rare or exclusive batch products. It’s enough to leave a bad taste! As luck would have it, you could also use intelligent labels to safeguard bottled goods, too.
The tech could also be used to authenticate luxury beverages while guaranteeing their unopened, mint condition. By adding a ‘tamper’ strip to the label design, you could get visual confirmation of a broken bottle seal alongside an encrypted log of the breach.
3. Safeguard your ‘preloved’ market
The luxury secondhand market is rapidly growing, creating a breeding ground for counterfeiters with forged authentication documents and fake products. That is until NFC came along to ruin the party. Not only does the tech allow customers to liquidate their investment and definitively prove authenticity, but it also makes your life easier!
If you choose to own your brand’s preloved market à la Gucci and Oscar De La Renta, your encoded NFC chips give you a failproof way to quickly verify secondhand products without the arduous (and sometimes fallible) manual authentication process. Remember — the chips can’t be tampered with, so you can buy back with peace of mind and a single scan!
Using NFC tags on your products
Are you ready to protect the value of your brand with an NFC tag? The first thing you’ll need is an expert team on your side. A tag team, if you will. Experts like ours can use decades of experience (and inlays they’ve designed themselves) to help you plan, budget, and roll out your project, keeping your goals in sharp focus the whole time.
An expert team can also help you choose the best tagging location for each product type and ensure the inlays you’ve selected are a good fit for your use case. Because we’re a global, vertical partner, we can even make and install the inlays, then get our local teams to train your staff, so the project goes off without a hitch.
Don’t forget — brand authentication is only as reliable as the tech supporting it. Teams like ours have plenty of experience with luxury brands and know how to meet exacting standards. Empowering customers to authenticate their goods is good for them, great for you, and a death bell for counterfeiters.
Get in touch with our experts today and find out what NFC technology could do to safeguard your brand. We’re all about knowledge-sharing and never gatekeep what we know, so go ahead and quiz us or visit our blog to learn more about what the tech can do for you.
