London Jewelers Lose Over $10m Due to Association with Kate Middleton

Recently, it seems as though people can’t get enough of Kate Middleton, especially after feasting eyes on her official engagement photos with Prince William in which she wore £275 topaz Hope earrings by Links of London. However, over the past year, British jeweler Links of London says that Kate Middleton has cost them nearly £8.2m in revenue just for being one of the Duchess’ chosen brands.

According to UK Sunday Times, the British jeweler has fallen victim after counterfeiters took to the web by selling counterfeit copies of their jewelry products on hundreds of websites, leading the company to hire an online brand protection company for the safety of their productions. So far the online brand protection company has successfully closed down 1026 fake websites, as for Links of London, their estimated loss due to the sales of counterfeiters over the past year have totaled around £8.2 million.

Here’s what Links of London’s head of online sales, Caroline Rolfe had to say, “The counterfeiters were a lot cleverer than we were at the time of the wedding. We didn’t have that much stock so we started to sell out quite quickly… The counterfeiters took advantage of that by saying they had stock and people were duped into buying them.”

Source: The Daily Beast

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