Beauty brand protection from Lush and Shopee: insights on fighting counterfeits and impersonation

As e-commerce grows fast, more opportunities are opening up for beauty brands, but so is a thriving environment for bad actors. Counterfeit beauty products in particular are harder to tell apart by eye than fashion items, making detection and enforcement even trickier.

In a recent MarqVision webinar, Lush and Shopee discussed the core challenges of brand protection in beauty e-commerce and practical solutions. Under the theme “Marketplace IP challenges and progress,” Gabriela Felix Francisco, in-house counsel for Cosmetic Warriors, owner of the LUSH brand, and Camille Licup and Tianyu Shen of Shopee’s brand protection team shared their experience and insights. This post covers the highlights of the webinar.

1. Beauty brand protection: why consumer education and proactive enforcement matter

As counterfeit beauty products spread fast, brand protection has become an essential strategy, not a side issue. As online buying becomes the norm, brands’ monitoring and enforcement often can’t keep pace with how fast the market is changing.

According to Shopee’s data, 44% of brands using its IP protection portal are beauty brands, yet they account for only 14% of all reports. Fashion brands, by contrast, make up just 16% of portal users but half of all reports. This suggests beauty brands need to adopt a more proactive IP protection strategy.

Counterfeit fashion products are relatively easy to spot. There are many clues: cheap materials, misspelled logos, poor finishing and extremely low prices. Counterfeit beauty products, on the other hand, closely resemble the real thing and aren’t priced very differently, so consumers often don’t realize there’s a problem until they’ve been harmed.

Fashion and beauty brands also differ in how they enforce. For fashion brands, 95% of reports are based on trademarks, but for beauty brands that figure is only 70–80%, and more creative and varied legal approaches are needed. In other words, trademark protection alone can’t fully stop fakes and impersonation for beauty brands; they need a more comprehensive response strategy.

As the threat of counterfeit beauty products grows, beauty brands need to build a proactive response strategy, not just react after the fact. Beauty brand protection is about safeguarding products and brand reputation, and it’s also key to building consumer trust. It’s no longer enough to detect and respond: proactive enforcement and raising consumer awareness have become essential.

2. The surging threat of beauty brand impersonation

Even Lush’s in-house legal team was fooled. Impersonators used the logo and copyrighted images without permission and claimed to be an “official” store. As a result, even Lush’s legal team mistook the fake store for an official one. In the webinar, Gabriela was candid: “If I was tricked, customers will certainly be tricked.”

The harm these impersonator sites cause goes beyond lost sales. When consumers unknowingly buy from a fake store, the brand loses not just revenue but something more important: trust.

Even a single bad experience with a product that’s expired, has deteriorated from improper storage or handling, or is counterfeit can seriously damage a brand’s reputation.

In today’s e-commerce landscape, protecting a brand’s value and authenticity isn’t optional. It’s essential. In fact, according to MarqVision’s US beauty market insight report, when consumers buy products, they expect brands to be actively taking protective measures for them, and that expectation keeps rising. Protecting consumer trust is a brand’s survival strategy.

How are Lush and Shopee tackling brand impersonation?

Using Marq AI, MarqVision and Shopee identified and blocked more than 15 accounts and online stores impersonating Lush, effectively stopping the sale of counterfeits on the marketplace.

But simply deleting accounts isn’t enough. The key is ongoing monitoring to shut down repeat bad actors and impersonators at the source.

Gabriela of Lush’s legal team said: “Shopee was very responsive with the mediation of MarqVision. And at this moment, we are all clean. But of course, we know this is a never-ending job, and we count on MarqVision to keep reporting and bringing these issues to us so we can keep enforcing and finding the best ways to deal with them together.”

3. What’s the most effective way to stop bad actors and impersonators?

Beauty brand IP protection isn’t solved by registering trademarks alone. Once a product is on the market, trademark law often isn’t enough to stop counterfeits, and many beauty brands struggle to enforce. Bad actors exploit this loophole, putting fake beauty products into circulation before brands and platforms can respond, threatening beauty brands’ reputations and posing serious risks to consumer safety.

But Lush’s Gabriela stresses, “There’s always an angle for enforcement.” Here are the practical strategies Lush recommends for beauty brands.

1. Copyright infringement reports

Sellers of counterfeit beauty products often copy the brand’s official images and product descriptions wholesale. Lush used MarqVision’s Image Vault feature to identify infringements precisely based on images the brand holds the copyright to, prove copyright ownership clearly and respond effectively.

What is MarqVision’s Image Vault?

It’s a feature that stores official information on a brand’s products securely in the cloud, maximizing the efficiency of counterfeit reporting and copyright management.

Each uploaded product image is assigned a unique token, and details such as origin and price can be recorded with it. It can also store and manage important data generated from planning through distribution and sales, protecting brand assets even more thoroughly.

Brand managers can update product information and images directly in the dashboard and keep IP data up to date. Want to learn more about MarqVision’s other features? See more here.

2. Use cosmetics regulations

When fakes are improperly stored or have unclear ingredients, proving that makes them a safety issue can get sales blocked. Lush used this to identify bad actors and take quick action.

3. Apply consumer protection laws

Fake beauty products go beyond trademark misuse. They can threaten consumers’ health. Emphasizing under consumer protection laws that counterfeits are dangerous can prompt global platforms such as Shopee to act decisively.

What works best?

Not relying on a single strategy. If one legal route doesn’t work as well as expected, approach it from another angle to find a way to stop bad actors. Combining legal and regulatory tools into a layered response strategy is the core of brand protection.

4. Shopee’s brand protection strategy for 2025

Shopee, the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, keeps improving its systems to strengthen brand protection. With counterfeits and gray-market (unauthorized) sales expected to rise, Shopee is implementing strong measures to protect brands and consumers, including AI-based monitoring, stronger seller verification and swift action against repeat offenders. In 2025, Shopee’s brand protection policies will change as follows.

1. Stronger AI-based monitoring

Shopee uses more than 80 brand-specific AI models to detect each brand’s counterfeit listings in advance and remove them automatically, making the marketplace safer.

2. Stronger seller verification

It applies stricter Know Your Customer (KYC) policies to ensure sellers go through rigorous vetting before they can sell on Shopee.

3. Faster action against repeat offenders

In 2024, Shopee stepped up action against repeat offenders, sanctioning 20% more bad actors than in 2023.

4. An improved brand IP portal

New features improve the user experience and provide key insights, so brands can prioritize enforcement against bad actors more efficiently.

Shopee is focused on building a marketplace optimized for brands through continuous technical innovation and stronger policies. In 2025, it’s expected to lead change in e-commerce with an even stronger brand protection system.

5. Brand IP protection made stronger with generative AI: MarqVision

In the webinar, Gabriela of Lush’s legal team said, “You can’t fight counterfeiting alone.” With countless listings, platforms and repeat offenders, it’s practically impossible for brands to handle it all manually.

Backed by strong global partnerships, MarqVision can quickly detect and act on counterfeit listings across more than 1,500 online platforms in 180 countries. As the first in the industry to adopt generative AI, it also delivers more precise and efficient brand protection. See how to protect your brand’s IP more effectively with AI.

• Global marketplace coverage: Detect counterfeits quickly across more than 1,500 marketplaces and block listings fast.
• Automated processes: Use MarqVision’s proprietary AI to identify listings accurately and maximize efficiency with automated enforcement.
• Detection of combined threats: Detect counterfeits, gray-market sales, impersonation and other IP threats together in one platform, catch the latest tactics quickly and respond immediately. Act quickly and effectively whenever combined threats arise.
• AI-based response strategy: Analyzes patterns in detection data to understand repeat offenders’ behavior, then identifies the countries, platforms and products where problems occur most to deliver a tailored response strategy.

Not just beauty brands but every brand can face a range of IP threats. If your brand is facing counterfeits, gray-market sales or impersonator accounts on Shopee or other marketplaces, talk to a MarqVision expert today. Request a free consultation to strengthen your brand protection and growth in global markets.