China, Brazil, India- BRICS.. What are they upto? Cheap Labor, huge resources of raw materials, hardworking people and intelligence are helping these counties grow in quantum leaps. Most of the products seen in our household are made in China right?? What does this mean?? Are we being affected??
This means that China is starting to dominate the manufacturing sector in the world for household products. Big MNCs’ are having more and more licensed manufacturers and joint venture partners in China. The internet has made the Chinese accessible to the rest of the world and the ‘Communist’ Chinese Government is not being that “Communist” after all!! Merchants and industries are making a killing by supplying goods to the outside world. But they are also becoming a cause for concern. HOW, WHERE, WHY??
How??- Through the internet
Where??- Right in front of our eyes
Why??- We want cheaper products and they want our money.
Chinese merchants are misusing the trust the licensers and partners have in them. They produce more than they are required, make ‘fake’ original look-alike labels and softwares and sell them to innocent customers who just are carried away by the lucrative prices they offer. Vertu phones prices start at around $ 3,000 and can go up to $ 50,000+. These phones are widely sold on the internet for less than 500 dollars. Ridiculous right but how?? Look alikes. Chinese are mastering the art of making perfect lookalikes. It is so easy when a person knows about the Vertu special features to differentiate between the original and a look alike. The phones look exactly the same but once it is turned on, it makes a world of difference. Vertu phones have a special feature called the ‘Vertu Concierge’. Special airline reservations, hotel reservations, no waiting in line are a few features of this software. You have to actually experience it to believe it. This describes how the special features work Vertu features. The Chinese look alike phones look exactly the same, have a very bad operating system and lack the features. What does this mean?? The wrong kind of market segment using “ $ 300 Vertu” phones which is actually bad for the reputation of the Vertu company which in turn affects its elite clientel who pay thousands of dollars for their status symbol and luxury.
The industry which has been badly disrupted due to these fake imitations is the clothing and fashion industry. The world is being mobbed with lookalikes of bags, sunglasses, shoes etc of big designer houses like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Burberry and practically any brand which comes in your mind including brands like Nike, Reebok etc. On websites which have secure payments, LV bags are available for $ 100+. For example: A ‘Louis Vuitton Palermo GM’ handbag is available on the internet for $ 159 whereas on the www.louisvuitton.com , it costs $ 1360. This shows how even authenticity cards are also being provided for imitation products Look for the authenticity.
As more and more fake imitations are being made, it has slowly become next to impossible to tell the differences between the authentic and the imitations to such an extent that even personnel working in the designer houses could be easily deceived by the fake imitations. The US trade commission is being put under tremendous pressure as reported in the article Chinese fake product plague The consumers are being put under serious threat of being cheated and paying money for replicas which are easily available on the internet and manufactured and shipped from Mainland China. This makes me strongly believe that the merchants are using the internet as a tool to con consumers by showing them that the imitations look just like the original.
