What Is SKU-Level Matching?

SKU-level matching is a method of verifying whether a marketplace listing genuinely corresponds to a specific product in a brand’s catalogue, comparing it against the brand’s actual SKU data rather than just checking for keyword or brand-name matches.
Why it matters
Keyword-based detection alone tends to produce a lot of false positives, flagging legitimate resellers or unrelated products that happen to mention a brand name, and false negatives, missing counterfeit listings that deliberately avoid using the brand name in the title or description. SKU-level matching is what lets detection stay precise at scale, without a brand’s team having to manually review every keyword hit.
How it works
Each listing is compared against the brand’s real product catalogue using multiple signals together, images, pricing, seller history and text, rather than any single one in isolation, and matched to the specific SKU it claims to be. A listing that doesn’t align with the genuine product’s real attributes at that level of detail is flagged as a likely infringement for verification.
In practice
Two listings might both mention the same brand name, one from an approved reseller selling the genuine product, and one selling a visually similar counterfeit at a lower price. A keyword search treats both the same. SKU-level matching distinguishes them by comparing each listing’s actual product signals against the brand’s catalogue data for that specific SKU, not just the name attached to it.
How Truviss helps
SKU-level matching is core to how Truviss’s Marketplace Scanner verifies counterfeit listings, analysing 500+ data points per listing so takedowns target genuine infringements rather than lookalike noise, with human review available for edge cases before any takedown is filed.
Frequently asked questions
Keyword matching only catches listings that mention the brand name and treats every mention the same way, which misses counterfeits that omit the name and wrongly flags legitimate resellers who use it correctly.
Product images, pricing, seller history and listing text are the core signals, compared together against the brand’s real catalogue data for that product rather than checked one at a time.