LV's Recognition Algorithm: 4 Seconds to Identify Fake Bags, With an Accuracy Rate of 99.1%

The counterfeit luxury goods industry is a gray industry that has been repeatedly banned, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in losses to genuine merchants and consumers every year, causing harm to businesses and consumers. As a global luxury giant, LVMH attaches great importance to the fight against counterfeit luxury goods. LVMH's subsidiary Entrupy has launched an artificial intelligence authentication system that can authenticate the authenticity of luxury handbags in 4 seconds, thereby preventing counterfeit goods from entering the market.

There is a classic line in the classic American TV series "Sex and the City": "The day I own Louis Vuitton is the day I stand out."

In the play, the heroine Carrie gave her assistant an LV handbag, and the assistant immediately showed crazy gratitude and disbelief. These scenes show that many urban women are pursuing high-end luxury bags.

Whether it is out of the natural love of beauty, or because of identity recognition, increased consumption levels, or because of vanity and showing off wealth, each reason can become a driving force for consumers to "bow down" to branded bags.

Many womenLuxury BagsThe pursuit of brand-name bags is almost crazy. It is becoming more and more common for college students to take out loans to buy bags and save money just to buy a brand-name bag.**"A woman in Hangzhou earns 4,000 yuan a month and saves 20,000 yuan to buy a bag"**It became a hot topic on Weibo and sparked heated discussion.

In this era, luxury bags have become a status label. Carrying a luxury bag means confidence, satisfaction, high-end and exquisiteness.

Behind the huge market: a carnival of high-quality imitation goods

Luxury goods occupy a huge market in China and are growing rapidly. According to McKinsey's "China Luxury Report 2019", in 2018, Chinese people's luxury consumption in China and abroad reached**770 billion RMB,**It accounts for one-third of total global luxury consumption.

According to Tmall’s 2018 Luxury Bag Consumer ReportAccording to the data, the demand for luxury bags among Chinese women has exploded, with the number of consumers increasing by nearly 50% year-on-year.**In 2018, 350,000 women in China bought at least 12 bags per year.**Moreover, those born in the 1990s have surpassed those born in the 1980s, purchasing nearly 50% of the luxury brand bags.

Consumers' tireless pursuit of bags is all forLV, Hermes, GucciIt created a huge market, but also achieved a large number ofCounterfeit manufacturers.

Hermès CEO Patrick Thomas once said in an interview with French media: All Hermès products sold online are fake. In the seizure report released by the US Customs last month,**There were 5,300 counterfeit items, of which 1,263 were fake handbags.**Although law enforcement agencies and businesses have been working hard to combat counterfeit goods, the huge profits behind the industry have prevented it from happening again and again.The profit of counterfeit luxury goods can reach up to 650%, which ultimately makes it "difficult to uproot the grass, for it will grow again in the spring breeze."

Moreover, the means of counterfeiters have also kept pace with the times, and the counterfeit goods they make are often more "I'm not sure even at the counter."

The quality levels of high-quality imitation goods are divided from low to high into 1:1 replicas (also known as imitation goods), original leather (customized), top-level goods and original orders (also called remaining orders and tail orders). In the early days, these four categories were called one-to-one, super A, A and B. Later, in order to reflect the quality, the sellers changed the category names.

**The reason why the products of high-quality imitation manufacturers are so "high-quality" that it is difficult to distinguish the real from the fake is because they also have a very "professional" imitation process.**Whenever a counter launches a new model of bags, they will go to the counter in person to check it out, or buy the authentic product, and make a pattern according to its leather, lining leather, hardware, size, etc., and then continuously improve the details and optimize it, and finally go into mass production.

These counterfeits are flooding the online market and the second-hand market, causing great trouble to both merchants and consumers.

In this regard, the world's largest luxury goods groupLVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) has already taken action to use artificial intelligence technology to combat counterfeit luxury handbags.

Fake bag identification company, focusing on anti-counterfeiting for many years

As a luxury brand giant, LVMH pays attention to combating counterfeit goods. It has a dedicated team to manage and protect the company’s intellectual property rights. In 2016, LVMH selected a US-based companyEntrupyAs its artificial intelligence certification solution provider,Designed to stop counterfeit products from entering the market.

Entrupy is an AI-based SaaS company founded in 2012. Its investors include DG Lab Fund, deep learning pioneer and Facebook AI Research (FAIR) director Yann LeCun, and others.

The company's main business isUse computer vision algorithms and macro lenses to bring security to high-value physical transactions.

Since joining LVMH, Entrupy’s patented technology is used by hundreds of secondary retailers and marketplaces to authenticate handbags and wallets from 15 brands including Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Hermès.

According to reports, Entrupy's patented system uses peripheralsMacro lensInspects the exterior, interior, and hardware of the package, then compares these images with images already in its databaseOver 3 million imagesCompare to determine if the bag is authentic.

This AI identification system poses a huge threat to counterfeiters, and even bag appraisers may become unemployed.

Detect fake packages in 4 seconds, with an accuracy rate of 99.1%

Entrupy mobile app currently supports the authentication of 15 luxury brand handbags on the market, including Celine and LV under LVMH, as well as Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Fendi, Goyard, Gucci, Hermes, etc.The identification accuracy rate is 99.1%, and the results will be announced in just 4 seconds.

However, during the authentication process, users are required to select the brand and style of the handbag, and take several clear pictures of the handbag from both near and far distances. During the authentication process, the AI system algorithm will capture approximately500 data pointsTo identify, including texture, contrast, stitching, logo geometry, craftsmanship and other characteristics.

The official inspection process is divided into five steps:

– Place Entrupy hardware peripherals directly on items

– Open the Entrupy app

– Follow the app’s prompts to take a picture of your bag

– AI algorithms (based on deep convolutional neural networks and computer vision) analyze images to identify authenticity

– Receive identification results

Entrupy said that although the most reliable way to identify is still the expert's personal inspection,**Human experts are prone to making mistakes, and counterfeiting techniques are constantly improving.**Original designers often tweak some of the bag’s features to prevent counterfeiting, and even experts have a hard time keeping up with these differences.

Therefore, relying on in-depth**Microscopic image database,**It is currently the only way to keep up with the latest design trends of handbags.

Regarding the source of the data set, the company said that it has collected different data from all over the world for many years and established data partnerships with well-known companies to collect their inventory data, thereby ensuring that they can check items in advance.

They currently have**Data samples from more than 80 years ago to recent months.**Through 3 layers of filtering (2 manual and 1 algorithmic), they corrected errors in the submitted data, ensuring that the correct information was always provided to the algorithm during the machine training process.

Good technology: Keep consumers from being fooled

In the current market, in addition to fake bags, other types of counterfeit goods are also numerous and disgusting.

Therefore, a series ofIntroduction to luxury goods, how to choose luxury bagsArticles and platforms have also emerged as the times require. There are many users on Xiaohongshu and Douyin who teach how to identify luxury goods.

The traditional identification method is generally throughAnti-counterfeiting code, LOGO, internal labeletc. However, the increasingly sophisticated counterfeiting craftsmanship and the growing popularity of the second-hand market have made the battle of authenticity identification more difficult.

With the help of artificial intelligence, consumers will be able to easily identify counterfeit luxury goods in the future, and merchants can also prevent counterfeit goods from entering the market at the source.Perhaps in the near future, counterfeiters and sellers of fake goods will disappear completely.

**Kind tips:**Dear readers, you can use this practical skill to help your boyfriend/girlfriend identify whether the bag is genuine, or it is also great to forward this article to them.

Of course, this is assuming you have a boyfriend/girlfriend or a bag.

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