How Melinda Maria Protects Its Designs and Retail Partners with Podqi

Impact

• Copycats are caught by how they look, not only what they’re called. With Podqi, Melinda Maria finds knockoffs that never mention the brand’s name.

• Retail partners are kept out of the crossfire. Authorized partners are separated from the copycats, even when they use the same photos.

• Fake “official” stores are taken completely offline. Lookalike sites are completely shut down, and Amazon knockoffs now have a direct line to removal.

Company Background

Luxury you can wear every day? That's the idea behind Melinda Maria.

Since 2005, Melinda Maria has made handcrafted, 18k gold-plated jewelry at accessible prices. Sold online and through independent boutiques, it's been worn by everyone from Jennifer Lopez to Taylor Swift. Every sighting sends shoppers hunting for the look, and that kind of visibility is exactly what makes Melinda Maria a target for copycats.

A year ago, Melinda Maria partnered with Podqi to find and remove copycats across marketplaces, social shops and lookalike websites, without putting its real retail partners in the crossfire. This month, the partnership passed 500 successful takedowns.

Melinda Maria's Challenge

Celebrity demand made Melinda Maria's designs easy to sell, and just as easy to copy. Knockoffs followed the brand everywhere it went:

• Lookalike pieces on TikTok Shop, eBay and Temu matched Melinda Maria's product photos but never named the brand, so keyword searches missed them

• Lookalike storefronts ("melindamariaofficial.shop," "melindamariahq.shop") posed as the official store

• Amazon knockoffs copied Melinda Maria’s signature designs, right down to the MM monogram

Melinda Maria's real retail partners sell the same pieces with the same photos. Of the nearly 1,900 listings Podqi surfaced, 63% belonged to authorized stockists, so an indiscriminate takedown program would have hit the brand's own partners first.

Sorting partners from copycats by hand, across more than 300 sites, was more than any team could keep up with.

How Podqi Helped

Most of the knockoffs Podqi removed never used the Melinda Maria name in their titles. Podqi monitors the brand's “MELINDA MARIA” and “MM” trademarks alongside 1,033 product images, catching copies a name search would never find.

Podqi turned Melinda Maria's brand protection into precise enforcement that knows a partner from a copycat:

• From keyword searches that miss unbranded listings → to image matching against the brand's own product photos, which caught 383 of the 528 removed listings even though their title, seller name and URL never mention Melinda Maria

• From partners and copycats sharing the same photos → to 174 authorized retailer sites cleared up front, keeping enforcement off real partners

• From one-off notices on Amazon → to tough cases escalated together, with repeat filings that brought knockoffs down on Amazon.ca and a new Brand Registry setup for direct reporting

• From rogue domains left standing → to 11 lookalike storefronts shut down through their hosts and registrars, phishing reports for sites that ignore every channel, and 56 more lookalike domains under watch

Year One by the Numbers

In its first year with Melinda Maria, Podqi removed 528 infringing listings from 372 sellers across 48 sites, with a median of just 3 days from filing to removal.

• 83% takedown success rate, with most of the rest still in progress

• 362 TikTok Shop listings removed at a 98% success rate

• ~$46K in estimated revenue protected

• Nearly 1,200 partner listings left untouched

The first month cleared a backlog of copycats already live at launch. Since then, new ones have slowed to a trickle, and Podqi clears most within days.

The Future with Melinda Maria

As Melinda Maria launches new collections and signs new retail partners, Podqi scales with it. Every launch is a fresh target for copycats, and every new stockist is one more partner to protect. Podqi stays ahead of both, so the brand's next celebrity moment drives sales, not knockoffs.

“The Podqi team has been instrumental in our fight against counterfeits and imposter sites. Without the Podqi dashboard to help us identify and compile infringing sites across the internet, the volume would have been far too much for our small but mighty team to manage on our own. Even in the past year alone, the platform’s advancements have significantly improved how efficiently we can identify and report infringers. Just as valuable is the team itself: they’re eager to help with every case, no matter how challenging it may seem at first. It’s been a true pleasure partnering with them this past year.”

Danielle Morris, E-commerce Manager, Melinda Maria