Introduction

Following discussions in Chapter 2 of the paradigmatic explanatory frameworks for selling counterfeits, this chapter examines the supply-side of the online and localized offline market in Beaufort. This includes offline distribution avenues to online sellers, and the role of the internet in the local trade of beauty counterfeits. The offline distribution networks, the gym and the salon, are explored using observations and participant accounts of their legitimate and illicit working practices and the skills required for both. The online environment of illicit supply will then be unpacked, including how offline sellers procure stock from online sources, use social media platforms to learn how to ‘safely’ inject cosmetic enhancements and the role of the internet in selling and advertising illicit beauty products and services. The final section brings the first two sections together to address how backgrounds and experiences shape young people's willingness to engage in selling practices, and their positions as consumers focused on improving their identity and appearance. This chapter advances the argument that these young people's selling practices do not fit into many of the traditional explanatory frameworks for selling counterfeits, which tend to dominate criminology's theoretical repertoire.

The offline beauty marketplace

The intertwinement of licit and illicit business

Common assumptions associated with the supplying of counterfeits maintain that the sale of counterfeits is linked to organized criminal enterprise such as trafficking, terrorist funding, sexual exploitation and violent activities (Naylor, 2002; Lowe, 2006; Home Office, 2022).