steadily growing<\/a>, and websites selling used luxury bags, watches and even sneakers seem to be everywhere. If you\u2019re marketing those luxury goods, the last thing you want to be doing is unwittingly selling fakes.<\/p>\nHow can you be confident? After all, the person you are buying from might not themselves know an item is fake.<\/p>\n
Guess what? AI can help.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like fingerprints<\/h2>\n Entrupy\u2019s New York work space is a chaos of fancy handbags, stacked almost to the ceiling. Fortunately, co-founder and CEO Vidyuth Srinivasan has a pocket-sized gadget to bring order to the chaos. \u201cIt\u2019s like fingerprints,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The gadget (it looks a bit like a phone, but it\u2019s a proprietary device) hosts an Entrupy app where the user selects a brand and product and then takes a series of photographs following the app\u2019s instructions. The camera uses microscopy, detecting details at resolutions beyond the capabilities of the human eye. Here comes the AI: it compares the new images with a huge database of existing images from both authentic and counterfeit items and within seconds certifies the item as authentic or \u201cunidentified.\u201d<\/p>\n
This gives sellers and re-sellers a basis to certify their goods as authentic, but there\u2019s another, growing use case \u2014 a nefarious one. There is a practice, apparently, of purchasing an authentic luxury item from a store and then \u201creturning\u201d a fake copy. That way, the culprit gets to keep a $5,000 bag, say, while also getting their $5,000 back. Entrupy\u2019s authentication device can defend against this.<\/p>\n
Nothing falls through the cracks<\/h2>\n LePrix\u2019s unusual position in the luxury re-sale market makes authentication critical. Rather than an ecommerce direct-to-consumer re-sale business, Le Prix is B2B. It sources pre-owned luxury goods for sale to retailers. We spoke with co-founder and CMO Emily Erkel to learn more. Why, for example, can\u2019t the retailers source from, say, Herm\u00e8s or Gucci directly?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a number of things,\u201d she said. \u201cFirst, our suppliers can be re-sellers themselves with inventory they can\u2019t move, they can be luxury brand houses with inventory they want to offload (over-stock) and they can be retailers like department stores that have over-stocked inventory too. Sourcing pre-owned luxury is very difficult. It often requires travel to Europe or Japan, translations, customs duties \u2014 it\u2019s a very fragmented and analog industry. What LePrix does is aggregate and digitize the B2B pre-owned space for businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to taking care of translations and customs, LePrix inspects every item that enters the process. If retailers are working with unknown sources, say on eBay, they\u2019re engaged in a risky business, Erkel said. Pre-owned items can be in a multitude of conditions, from \u201clike new\u201d to obviously well-used; they\u2019re just not direct from the brand.<\/p>\n
LePrix has partnered with Entrupy from the very start of their B2B business (they had previously been a D2C vintage consignment business). \u201cWe selected them after vetting many authentication companies because of the amount of data they use and their technology. Our inspectors use the Entrupy devices to make sure things are verified authentic and we really trust Entrupy\u2019s processes,\u201d Erkel said.<\/p>\n
How many items fail the verification process? \u201cI think it\u2019s less than 0.1%,\u201d said Erkel. \u201cWe\u2019re really strict on who can join our supplier network and we have strong relationships with them. In addition to a digital certificate of authenticity, we also provide printed card versions that customers love seeing on their pre-owned items\u201d (the ultimate customer, in other words, not the business LePrix is selling to).<\/p>\n
Even though so few fakes enter LePrix\u2019s workflow, authentication (and even double and triple authentication) because their reputation and the reputation of businesses they sell to are on the line. \u201cWe want to make sure nothing falls through the cracks,\u201d Erkel explained.<\/p>\n\n