The finding
On 20 October 2026 the OECD published "Counterfeiting at a crossroads: The Italian experience," drawn from newly compiled OECD customs seizure data covering 2023 to 2025.
The headline is scale: about €14 billion of global trade in counterfeit products infringing Italian intellectual property rights in 2025. But the number a brand owner should act on is a different one.
Between 2023 and 2025, 68% of counterfeit products infringing Italian rights were sold on primary markets — to consumers who believed they were buying genuine goods. In 2019 that figure was around 40%.
The counterfeit trade has moved out of the flea market and into the checkout. The fakes no longer compete with your brand at the edge of the market; they compete with it in the transaction.
The numbers
- €14 billion — global trade in counterfeits infringing Italian rights in 2025, equal to 1.25% of Italian manufacturing sales
- €11 billion — estimated lost sales for Italian firms, of which €3.8 billion was clothing, footwear and leather
- 19,000 jobs and €759 million in forgone tax revenue
- 65% of interceptions traced to China as the provenance economy
- 65% of global seizures moved as small parcels — mail or express courier
- 75% of those seized parcels held a single item; 93% held fewer than five
- 73% for SME-related counterfeits specifically, against 65% overall
The drift is long-running. On a three-year moving average, single-item shipments rose from about 48% of seizures in 2017 to 56% in 2025, while shipments of more than ten items fell from 17% to 10%.
Measured against market size rather than seizure volume, watches and jewellery lost the most, at 25.5% of total sector sales; perfumery and cosmetics lost 9%; clothing, footwear and leather lost 7%.
Why the move to primary markets matters
A counterfeit sold on a primary market takes a sale that would have been yours, and takes it while the buyer believes your brand's promise still holds. So the consumer defrauded forms an opinion about your quality, your price and your integrity based on a fake.
The OECD also records that counterfeiters have relocated assembly and labelling closer to end markets, and have begun exploiting less-scrutinised entry points inside the Schengen area. Your own supply chain is now a plausible route: a packaging supplier buying grey stock, a filler applying your artwork without your codes, a distributor who treats your mark as a licence to print. From the consumer's side, none of that is distinguishable from the counterfeiter's operation.
A counterfeit sold as genuine is not a reputational problem for the brand owner. It is a displaced sale and a false product review, and only one of those shows up in your financials.
Source and caveats
OECD, Counterfeiting at a crossroads: The Italian experience, published 20 October 2026, using newly compiled OECD customs seizure data covering 2023-25. The figures are Italy's, measured as counterfeit trade infringing Italian rights holders.
Two caveats. First, the evidence is seizure data, and seizure data is shaped by where enforcement is looking. With 75% of seized small parcels holding one item, a trade fragmented below the threshold of container inspection is systematically under-counted — a falling seizure number here is not a falling counterfeit trade. Second, the euro figures are modelled estimates, not counted values, because seizure data captures only the fraction of trade enforcement intercepts.
Key takeaways
- 68% of counterfeits against Italian brands were sold on primary markets in 2023-25, up from around 40% in 2019.
- 65% of seizures moved as small parcels; 75% of those held a single item and 93% held fewer than five.
- China accounted for almost 65% of interceptions.
- Italian firms lost about €11 billion in sales and 19,000 jobs; the state lost roughly €759 million in tax.
- Watches and jewellery lost the most relative to market size (25.5%), ahead of perfumery and cosmetics (9%) and clothing, footwear and leather (7%).
What this means for a brand owner
- Audit the first mile, not just the trademark. Counterfeits are now assembled and labelled close to end markets. Any supplier that buys unbranded goods and applies your artwork downstream is an assembly line with your name on it. Put serialisation at the filling or packing step, not at the artwork step.
- Read your scan data by market. Per-unit authentication only tells you something if the scans arrive. A region where genuine units are selling but verification traffic is near zero is a market where the units are not coming from you.
- Hunt for the primary-market listing. Under the 68% figure, the counterfeit sits in a normal-looking retail listing with plausible photography and plausible reviews. Listing quality is the signal; your logo appearing somewhere is not.
- Do not read a seizure drop as a risk drop. A trade fragmented into single-item parcels falls below the threshold where it shows up in enforcement statistics. Trend scan volume and channel mix, not confiscations.
- Treat supplier monitoring as a supply chain risk. Only one in ten EU SMEs register their IP, and 40% of those that do never monitor. Your protection is the sum of your suppliers' attention.