LVHM, the owner of Louis Vuitton and over 60 luxury other brands, is France’s largest publicly quoted company, worth over $180 Billion.It has been working on a Blockchain based platform to track its luxury goods from the components it uses to the final items being sold in shops.
The global online counterfeiting economy was estimated to be valued at over $323 billion in 2017. According to the Global Brand Counterfeiting Report 2018, luxury brands incurred losses of $30.3 billion through internet sales. So it’s no surprise the LVMH is looking at ways to tackle this loss of income. However, it is offering a solution for itself and its competitors.
LVMH is working with Microsoft and ConsenSys to develop a Blockchain built on Quorum, JP Morgan’s version of Ethereum which, according to reports, is due to be released in May or June 2019.
The platform is designed to offer proof of authenticity of goods and able to trace their origins from raw materials to merchants. Included the second hand markets. This platform aims to offer protection of creative intellectual property, exclusive offers and events for each brands’ customers, as well as anti-ad fraud.
LVMH intends to offer the platform in white-label form to other luxury brand competitors by vesting its intellectual property in a separate entity in which other firms can have equity ownership so allowing global brands such as Burberry or Gucci to use the platform so challenging the international fake market of their luxury brands.
Interesting to seeBlockchain technology being used to solve an industry-wide problem, which could mean a more robust solution and better outcome.
