During the summer, Deborah Holtschlagowner of Plant trapsfaced a flood of counterfeiters selling products ripping off his design online. She started filing reports on online shopping platforms, but it “became a full-time job.”
Six months later, Marketplace’s Kristin Schwab returned to Holtschlag. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kristin Schwab: So how is the business and how were the holidays?
Deborah Holtschlag: We are doing very well. The fourth quarter was wonderful. One of the things that really helped us was that a few weeks ago we went viral on Instagram, reaching 38 million people. I focus a lot on social media and create a lot of content. So it’s still very useful.
Schwab: Why don’t you give us an update on your fight against counterfeits? Where are you with this?
Holtschlage: Okay, so I looked up some information, and we’ve come a long way since we last spoke this summer, and we’ve managed to regain control of the brand. We’ve sued hundreds of sellers and won judgments and cash settlements, and it shows in the numbers. In April, we removed over 200 counterfeit listings across major marketplaces, and in November we only had to remove two. Yes, and we were able to get national distribution to garden supply stores for spring.
Schwab: How does it feel to gain ground here?
Holtschlage: So I definitely feel more empowered, and it’s satisfying to get judgments against sellers who kept re-listing their products dozens of times. Like you knock them over – we played Whack-a-Mole for a long time. So it feels really good. But I also feel very lucky, because I’ve spoken to a lot of brands that didn’t survive this situation.
Schwab: How serious is the problem still for you? You said you still battle some of these issues from time to time. Is this just an unfortunate part of the business world?
Holtschlage: This is certainly an unfortunate aspect of business. We’re experts now, so when we find ads we remove them pretty quickly, but it’s just a matter of tracking them and removing them. However, when we spoke this summer, we were drowned in hundreds of announcements, and it was really difficult.
Schwab: How much time do you spend looking for these fakes, seeing what they look like? I mean, how much of your activity is devoted to this part of the project?
Holtschlage: So I definitely spend a few hours every week looking at the markets that I can see. But I also have to try to protect some outside of the US markets, as we have a new licensor in the manufacturing sector in India. So we looked through these markets and found a few of those as well.
Schwab: And you said you might be getting into stores soon, right?
Holtschlage: Yes, we licensed Railscapes to Bloem Living, which is a big garden company here in the United States, and they got us into hundreds of garden centers. I think the big box store Lowe’s will have Railscapes in the spring, along with a few others.
Schwab: I know a lot of your business is online, but I imagine it’s pretty amazing to think about walking into a store and seeing your product on the shelves.
Holtschlage: It is. I’m pretty excited about it. I can’t wait. And I think brick-and-mortar stores are much safer, because they don’t want to have inventory that they’re going to get cease and desist letters for. So it’s a much safer place.
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