Someone has to go and buy the fake
Dashboards tell you where suspicious scans are clustering. They cannot photograph the stall, buy the bottle, or hand a sample to a regulator. That part still takes people in the market — which is the part most brand protection vendors leave to you.
Scope an engagementWho buys this
Two kinds of company, for opposite reasons. The first has no presence in the market at all: an exporter in Mumbai, Milan or Guangzhou whose distributor says there is a counterfeit problem, with no way to confirm it, quantify it, or do anything about it from six thousand kilometres away.
The second already has a global brand protection programme and a serialisation vendor, and does not need another platform. What they need is someone who can be in Nairobi or Nakuru this week, buy the product, and document it properly. This is sold as a service, not a software subscription, and it does not require you to change anything about your packaging or your systems.
How an engagement runs
Scoped, fixed-price, and documented at every step.
Scope
We agree the products, the markets, the number of outlets, and what a useful result looks like. If your scan data already shows a cluster, that is where we start.
Sweep and purchase
The team visits outlets as ordinary buyers and purchases suspect stock at market price, recording what was offered, at what price, and what the seller claimed.
Document
Each purchase is photographed, geo-tagged and dated, with the outlet name and any receipt, then held under a documented chain of custody.
Compare and test
Samples are compared against your genuine reference product. Where the question is what is inside rather than whose it is, we route samples to an accredited laboratory or the relevant regulator.
Hand over
You receive an evidence pack and a written report. Where you want to act, we support referrals to authorities such as Kenya's Anti-Counterfeit Authority, and work alongside your counsel.
What you actually receive
- A written report: what was found, where, at what price, and how it differed from your genuine product.
- An evidence pack per purchase — photographs, geo-tag, date, outlet name, seller claims, and receipt where given.
- An outlet map showing which markets, streets and traders are carrying suspect stock.
- Price and volume observations, so you can size the problem rather than guess at it.
- Physical samples retained under chain of custody, held for your counsel, a laboratory or a regulator.
- A recommended next step, including whether the evidence is strong enough to act on yet.
Where this pairs with the platform
If your products carry VerifyGuard codes, the field work gets sharper and cheaper: instead of sweeping a city, we go to the towns where cloned scans and consumer reports are already clustering. If they do not, we start from your distributor list and the markets you suspect. See how the platform works for exporters.
Field intelligence: common questions
What brands ask before commissioning market work in a country they do not operate in.
Can we buy this without using the VerifyGuard platform?
Yes. Plenty of brands already run a global serialisation or brand-protection system and simply have no one on the ground in African markets. Field intelligence is sold as a standalone engagement, scoped to your products and towns, and it is often how overseas brands start working with us.
Can the evidence be used in court?
It is collected to support enforcement: dated and geo-tagged purchase records, photographs of the product and the outlet, receipts where one is given, and a clear chain of custody from purchase to hand-over. We are not lawyers and we are not a forensic laboratory, so what constitutes admissible evidence is a matter for your counsel and the relevant authority. We prepare material that your lawyers can use and, where you ask, hand samples directly to an accredited laboratory or a regulator.
Which countries can you cover?
Our own team operates in Kenya, which is where we can run work directly and at short notice. Elsewhere in East and West Africa we work through vetted local partners, and we will always tell you plainly which of the two applies to your market before you commit. We would rather turn down a country than pretend to a presence we do not have.
How long does an engagement take?
A focused sweep of one product in one city is typically two to three weeks from scoping to report. Multi-city or multi-product work, or anything that needs laboratory testing, runs longer. If your scan map already shows a hotspot, we go straight to it, which shortens everything.
What does it cost?
Engagements are scoped rather than listed, because the cost is driven by the number of towns, outlets and samples, and by whether laboratory testing is involved. We quote a fixed price for a defined scope after a short call, so there is no open-ended meter running.
Still have a question? Talk to our team — we usually reply within one business day.
Tell us what you suspect, and where
Send us the product, the market and what your distributor is reporting. We will come back with a scope, a price and an honest view of whether field work is the right next step at all.
Talk to our teamRelated: market entry & compliance · industry guides · Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Authority