Behind The "Conspiracy" Of Luxury Goods Holding The Banner Of Counterfeiting

This year,

The fight against counterfeiting seems to be getting worse.

A few days ago, the famous outdoor brand Columbia launched a large-scale lawsuit to prosecute merchants who sell fake Columbia brand goods, and the number of merchants is 36.

In July, the luxury giant French Louis Weedon Marley Siti company (hereinafter referred to as LV) in Nanjing and Hefei more than 30 courts, each family claims 500 thousand yuan, the total amount of about 20 million yuan.

Dunhill, Cartire and other brands have also filed a lawsuit against the Nanjing court this year.

Behind the "conspiracy" of luxury goods holding the banner of counterfeiting

However, at the same time, in the sound of a false call, luxury goods do not seem to be very thorough, or can be said to be half hearted.

Because these brands, while fighting against small dealers, have expressed "no identification", and even there is no after-sales service phone.

Taking the initiative to fight against counterfeiting, but unwilling to help consumers who buy fake goods to protect their rights, luxury goods counterfeiting seems not to be so pure.

What are the reasons behind the half price of luxury goods?

Since July, about 20 small businesses in 3 big markets of Nanjing Lai Di shopping plaza, North Rim market, Tao Tao lane and 20 small businesses in the market have taken turns to the defendant's seat of the intellectual property court of the intermediate people's court.

And the prosecution they face is LV.

LV commissioned Roger law firm of Beijing to sue these small businesses for selling fake goods and repeating their trademark rights for a long time.

LV claims 500 thousand yuan for every small business and tens of thousands of yuan for its rights protection, and is also responsible for the joint and several liability of the market management.

Most of the defendants' markets are similar to those used in Xiushui Street, Beijing. Most of the goods they sell are cheap, mixed with brands and counterfeit goods, and are known as "Shanzhai bazaars".

Soon, the storm also hit Hefei.

In late July, the company went to court for more than 10 small businesses in Hefei Sun City and Baima mall.

At present, the company has reported more than 30 businesses in Nanjing and Hefei, claiming about 20 million yuan.

Due to the intensive cases and similar litigation contents, the local media in Nanjing joked that the intellectual property court of Nanjing intermediate people's court has recently become a "LV special field".

In August, there were still dozens of cases to fight.

Not only LV, Dunhill, Cartire and other brands have filed lawsuits against the court this year.

The number of counterfeiting cases of luxury brands has far exceeded that of previous years.

According to a close contact with the company, Louis Weedon chose this time to fight in Nanjing because the flagship store in Nanjing will open.

Coincidentally, Louis Weedon's exclusive store in Hefei's Yintai Center will also open in the near future.

Why luxury goods are fake

Why luxury brands are so keen on counterfeiting? One data may explain the problem: according to estimates, counterfeit goods only cause 30 thousand to 40 thousand jobs and 6 billion euros a year to the luxury industry in France.

As a result, France is best known for its actions against counterfeiting.

The Kolbe association is particularly active: it promotes the government to protect counterfeiting by legislation, and cooperate with French customs, airports, postal couriers and credit card companies to launch a lot of anti fake publicity campaigns.

In May 30th of this year, with the help of customs and Paris Airport companies, Air France and DAGO, the company has posted ten thousand humorous publicity posters at the French airport, for example, on the top of a long dumpling bag (long brand logo is a galloping horse), it says that "a horse with a wrong horse will cost you a lot".

The Kolbe association has not only publicizing in France but also has been making efforts to publicize posters in customs and airports in other European countries such as Britain, Czech and Hungary.

The publicity campaign against counterfeiting has made obvious effects on the public's cognition of fake goods.

According to a survey, French consumers know that the ratio of common law on intellectual property protection in Europe is 84%, ranking first among EU countries.

As the Internet has gradually become a paradise for the development of counterfeit goods, especially luxury goods, the association has also extended its anti counterfeiting activities to the Internet.

At the end of 2009, the CRB Association began to try to achieve the anti counterfeiting charter through a large number of e-commerce sales platform websites. However, only a few websites have signed a counterfeiting charter so far.

In the area of counterfeiting, other government departments in France also worked hard, and Valerie raggor, head of the intellectual property protection branch of the French customs and indirect taxation bureau, pointed out that we have set up a new network Customs Department to deal with network counterfeits. The network customs department includes 8 intelligence analysts and 7 customs investigators.

In France, the number of counterfeit goods seized by customs increased from 200 thousand in 1994 to 8 million 900 thousand in 2011, which was 44.5 times higher than that in 2011.

Fake goods are not inspecting.

Generally speaking, when consumers go to luxury brand counters such as Hermes, Gucci, Prada and Chanel, they will be rejected if they request inspection.

No provision of inspection services and no formal written identification has become the "hidden rules" of most luxury brands.

Whether it is leather goods, accessories, cosmetics or perfume, the main way for consumers to contact brands, exclusive stores or counters, does not provide true or false identification services.

The exclusive identification center of the brand is often "hidden in the boudoir unknown", even though there is no public contact on the official website of China.

Gucci China is headquartered in Shanghai, but no matter whether to dial 114 directory enquiries or search through the Internet, it is impossible to find the exact address or telephone number of Gucci China headquarters.

Contrary to the cold attitude of luxury goods counters refusing to inspect products, goods sold in the name of these luxury goods have been blooming everywhere in China's large and small online shops.

Taobao online, Hermes products more than 60 thousand pieces.

Among them, "absolute truth", "special inspection" and "overseas purchasing" account for a large proportion.

Many large websites also sell luxury goods.

In fact, even large e-commerce websites such as Jingdong and Dangdang have been repeatedly referred to as "not authorized" by the brand operators, and "retain the right to exercise their legal means".

SWAROVSKI, Gucci, CASIO and other brands said they did not cooperate with Jingdong and other websites.

Similarly, Rui Business Management (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. issued a statement saying that the company was the sole authorized importer and distributor of Tissot in mainland China, responsible for Tissot's related business in China, and did not sell brand products on Dangdang and other e-commerce websites.

According to our current law, "who advocates, who will give evidence", online shopping rights protection often requires the process of notarization buying fake products. The "off-site" decision of online pactions is often expensive and long.

And the identification center with the ability to distinguish true or false is often in the state of "seeing the end of the dragon" but also making it harder for consumers to make claims.

For some brands, brand is being expanded by brand. Some brands not only don't care about being "Shanzhai", but also like to see the brand entering the popular "pop" perspective.

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Views from all sides

Yi Shaohua, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Finance and economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

The superposition of various taxes and the accumulation of all kinds of fees are the fundamental reasons for pushing up the final selling price.

China has a higher import tariff policy on luxury goods, with a tax rate of 6.4%~25%.

But in addition to tariffs, luxury goods sold in China also need to pay VAT, consumption tax, business tax and so on. The consolidated tax burden is higher, resulting in the final retail price more than 2/3 above the CIF price.

In the face of the huge price gap between luxury goods at home and abroad, the reduction of consumers' consumption of luxury goods in China is mainly through the following points: first, we should adjust the scope of luxury tax collection and appropriately reduce tariffs; secondly, we should reduce domestic tax links, implement a unified consumption tax, exempt business tax and reduce various categories of tax and fee.

In addition, domestic enterprises should be encouraged to acquire foreign luxury brands, so that they can consider more domestic demand in product design, reduce the cost of brand promotion and all kinds of import links, and at the same time reduce the presupposition profit, so that the retail price of luxury goods will be integrated with the international market.

Hu Jianhua, lawyer of Jiangsu grand ceremony law firm

These international luxury goods companies and small businesses are "truer" and do not rule out propaganda or advocacy.

But I have to admit that a series of legal actions of these companies are just right. They are both rights protection and publicity.

The key to deal with luxury high-profile counterfeiting is to intensify the efforts to crack down on counterfeit and shoddy products, rectify the Shanzhai bazaars, and create a good environment for the creation of our own brands.

From the point of view, it may be very inefficient for a well known luxury brand to fight a small business.

But in the long run, it is definitely worth it.

Chinese people crave for luxury goods and lead to fake and shoddy breeding.

Xia Hua, chairman of the Yiwen group

I have also encountered domestic imitation, but instead of "counterfeiting", it is better to develop the copycat into his own offline agent, draw a bigger circle to draw him in, and use this means to turn his enemy into a friend.

This is the management philosophy of the current stage of economic development which is more suitable for Chinese enterprises.

This round of China's economy is not to warm up, but to send clothes and warm.

It doesn't matter. I can give you what you want, and we can create greater value together.

I feel that whoever can ignite others to the maximum extent will be able to achieve the greatest achievement in China.

Ceng Mingyue, expert of luxury Research Center, University of International Business and Economics

China's luxury sales increased first in the world last year.

People's crazy pursuit leads to fake and shoddy breeding.

The reason for the high compensation for small businesses is that this method has less investment, quicker effect and stronger deterrent force than the fake dens.

Whether it has been copied or not has always been an indicator of the popularity of a luxury brand, and it is also the reason why these companies do not spend too much effort to stop counterfeiting.

But this year, the intensive counterfeiting of "selling" links shows the ambition of these luxury brands to the Chinese market.

It is so popular that it is mainly due to the influence of the big brands, the price of the goods and the weak concept of the consumer brand.

As we all know, if you wear a cargo or carry a goods abroad, you will be refused or even fined.

If a netizen feedback, a friend's cousin bought a Hermes bag in a mansion in the country. It was found in France that it was fake and rejected by France permanently.

It can be seen that the brand concept abroad is stronger than domestic.

Therefore, Chinese people must not take a cargo to go abroad to shame, otherwise the consequences will be very embarrassing.

Serious people may also violate the law carelessly.

If the goods are checked by the genuine licensed manufacturers, they will undoubtedly lose their lawsuit.

In the past few years, the British national treasure brand has won a lawsuit against counterfeit in the Federal District Court of Manhattan, New York, and defendant DesignersImports Limited has sold counterfeit products.

He was sentenced to pay 1 million 500 thousand dollars and ordered to ban the sale of Burberry brand products.

Roger, lawyer of Beijing law firm, Wang Hongtao

With the warming of luxury brands in China, we should remind consumers that they should establish correct consumption concepts and reduce blind conspicuous consumption.

Tan Zhiyu, head of LV Public Relations Department

Louis Weedon firmly believes that cracking down on counterfeiting and plagiarism is an important part of brand sustainable development.

The company is not targeting only China's rights. Its global anti-counterfeiting operation has been in progress. In 2009, it launched 9489 search operations, 39 times a day, and 26843 anti counterfeiting lawsuits in the world.

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Zhou Ting, executive director of luxury Research Center, University of foreign trade and Economics

At present, luxury brand service has become the focus of consumer complaints. In her view, the international luxury brands provide at least eight crimes at home and abroad:

One of the sins: the missing repair point.

Overseas luxury brands have established a comprehensive after-sales service and maintenance system, so that consumers can enjoy convenient and considerate services.

But in China, many luxury brands do not have access to maintenance services. Individual brands set up repair points in Beijing or Shanghai, but they are usually set up by dealers only. They usually do simple and general maintenance, but the real maintenance needs to return to the original factory.

For luxury brand products purchased overseas, Chinese consumers expect to be able to get services in China, but most of the time they need to pport their products back to factories in Switzerland, France or Italy. This undoubtedly increases the difficulty for Chinese consumers to get services.

Sin two: maintenance time can not wait

In foreign countries, the maintenance time of luxury goods is relatively fast, usually less than a week or so.

But in China, the maintenance time of luxury goods is very long. It is almost 1~2 months. Many of the products that return to their origin must wait for about half a year.

As a result, the maintenance time is too long to become one of the focuses of Chinese consumers' complaints.

The reason is that the rapid development of the luxury market leads to the scarcity of talent, which makes the luxury brand lacks professional service personnel in China. On the other hand, it is also a luxury brand's market strategy. As a result, luxury brands make the scarcity of products artificially and at the same time create difficulties for people to create services, which makes consumers scramble for luxury goods.

Three of crime: unaffordable repair price

The price of foreign luxury goods is relatively low, and many brands even provide free maintenance for their customers.

But in China, the maintenance price of luxury goods is very high, which has become the unbearable pain for consumers.

Some consumers are forced to put their watches on the top of their watches because of the high cost of changing their watch bracelet.

Crime four: harsh policy of return

Foreign consumers can usually return to the luxury brand stores while holding the shopping notes. Luxury brands are very harsh to Chinese consumers. Whether they can be returned or not should be reconsidered, but to a certain extent, they are also related to too many fake goods in the country, which affects the brand's service strategy.

Sin five: product descriptions that do not read

Many Chinese consumers buy products from stores and go home to read product information. They will find that their information descriptions do not have a Chinese version, or they are not comprehensive enough information. They do not have a comprehensive and accurate introduction to how to maintain, maintain or return policies.

The instructions for foreign luxury brand products will not only provide the language version according to the needs of consumers in different countries, but also explain clearly and accurately.

Sin six: an unfulfilled promise

Consumers of luxury brands in China should have a deep understanding of the "excess commitment", that is, the promised service exceeds the actual service.

When shopping, brand employees can provide customers with cleaning and maintenance services at any time to shop, and can be returned free of charge. But when consumers actually demand to cash in, the brand shop assistants always find a lot of reasons to shirk.

Some consumers carried thousands of dollars worth of money, but they had problems after wearing them for hours.

When the child came to the store, he got the absurd reply: "who made you walk?"

Sin seven: serving people

After entering the luxury brand luxury store, have you ever been surveyed by the salesmen? Do you have the enthusiasm to recommend products that are more expensive? The phenomenon of "watching the dishes" is quite serious in the Chinese luxury brand sales office.

A survey by Zhou Ting found that luxury brands provide differentiated services to large and small customers in China. The richer the people are, the more satisfied they are with luxury brands. Instead of enjoying the proper services, the small customers suffer from discriminatory treatment.

But luxury brands offer extra services to large and small customers abroad, and their service standards are consistent.

Sin eight: disappearing season

Europe's two luxury discount season every year makes consumers unable to restrain their desire to compete.

Every time the discount season, whether Europeans or Chinese tour groups, there will be long queues in front of the shops.

The discount can be as high as 50 percent off.

Providing price concessions for new and old customers is also a reflection of the service level of luxury brands.

However, Chinese consumers, after contributing to the most powerful purchasing power of the luxury goods industry, not only have no preferential treatment for the discount season, but pay a higher premium.

In the face of such obvious domestic and foreign services, the luxury brands that continue to deepen the Chinese market have to make some changes.