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Online shopping giant Temu has agreed to work with the greeting card industry to remove copied designs from its site more quickly.

Card firms say hundreds of their copyrighted images have been used to create cheap rip-offs, costing them thousands of pounds in lost sales.

Designers told the BBC the process for getting the plagiarised listings removed has been like the fairground game ‘whack-a-mole’ with copied products re-appearing within days.

Temu said protecting intellectual property was a “top priority” and that it was encouraging sellers to join the trial of a new takedown process specifically for the greetings card industry.

Amanda Mountain, the co-founder of York-based Lola Design, discovered the catalogue of designs she had built up over a decade had nearly all been copied.

She found the images she had created had been lifted and were being advertised by other sellers on cards and other products like t-shirts.

Amanda bought one of the cards using her design and found the image was distorted and the paper was of a poorer quality than hers.

“It’s not a nice feeling to see something you’ve poured all your love and hours into taken within minutes,” she told the BBC. “I was in shock, and I actually thought to myself ‘what is the point of me still designing, I might as well just stop now’.”

Amanda, and her husband and business partner Frank, estimate that fraudulent versions of their products have made online sellers £100,000 in sales, equivalent to about 13% of Lola Design’s annual turnover.

However, Amanda said it is both the emotional toll and the time taken to get the copycat products removed that have had the biggest impact.

“Every piece that I create is actually a piece of me,” she said. “I know that sounds crazy, but it is. Every designer gives out a piece of themselves because they just want to create a little bit of happiness, and it is not much to ask for people to respect that.”

After pressure from the Greeting Card Association (GCA), Temu has now put in place a bespoke takedown process for the industry which, it says, will mean stolen designs are removed more quickly and won’t be able to be re-uploaded.

Previously, card firms would have to report each individual listing but, as part of the trial, they will now only have to submit one link. The software will remove the product and any others using the same design.

One card publisher, who helped develop the new system, saw 68 listings removed automatically. Something which previously might have meant 68 separate forms or emails to Temu.

According to the GCA, the system will then use AI to log the designer’s original creation as a protected image. It will then block any products using that design before they appear for sale.

In a statement, Temu said “intellectual property protection is a top priority” and that it had “invested heavily in resources to strengthen trust with brands, sellers and consumers”.

It said most requests to take down copyrighted content were resolved within three working days, but that greeting card firms were being encouraged to join the new trial which it said would lead to more products being removed automatically.

The system is bespoke to the card industry, however the BBC understands it could be used as a model for similar or alternative processes for other products.

Amanda Fergusson, the chief executive of the GCA, said the industry welcomed the changes. “We know our members feel very strongly about copycat sellers, and what’s more we also know customers are often disappointed by cheap copies,” she said.

“Our dialogue with Temu and the actions they’re taking, is a welcome first-step to address those issues,” she added.

For Amanda and Frank, it is not just their livelihoods at stake but the future of the whole supply chain which relies on the 1.5bn greeting cards sold in the UK each year.

“At some point, its going to be the consumers that are going to be affected, not just us as designers, because there won’t be any high streets,” Amanda said. She also had a message for people buying copycat cards: “Cheap always comes at a cost.”