EPSON & CANON TO TACKLE FAKE CARTRIDGES

[Anonymous]

Gearing up to face challenge of the fakes(INDIA)
Vendors like Epson and Canon are trying to tackle the fake product problem by introducing innovative technological advancements in their product range
December  2005
Vendors are finding it increasingly difficult to curb the fake product menace in the market. Several spurious versions of brands like D-Link, Transcend, HP, Epson, Canon etc are available tin the market. Customers buy this unknowingly, thinking it is genuine, and then when they face a problem with it, they return it to the vendor’s RMA centers. That is usually when the vendor learns about the presence of these fake products in the market. Nonetheless, the vendor’s reputation is on the line, and one failed customer can put several others off the brand.
Keeping this in mind, Epson is all set to introduce a new ink based cartridge in the Indian market. ”Firstly, we want to educate our customers on this front because a lot of times we see that the customers do not know whether they are buying a genuine cartridge or a fake one. We are also introducing a new cartridge with a lot of innovation being done on the quality of ink, so that customers will have long lasting prints. All our coming printer models will have this new cartridge,” explained, SM Ramprasad, Manager – Consumer Products, Epson India.
At a time when vendors operating in the printing arena are vying to increase their revenue stream coming from the consumable segment, addressing the issue of fake cartridges has become quite important.
Canon India is embarking on a strategy to educate its end customer to an extent that the customer knows what kind of product is he buying. The company is working towards creating cartridges, which would tell a customer about the genuineness of the product.
“According to various studies in the market, most of the time, the end-customer thinks that he or she is buying a genuine product. So keeping this in mind, we are going to make sure that the end-customer knows about the genuineness of the product that he or she is using. Our future cartridges will have intelligent sensors built within the product, so whenever a fake cartridge will be put in a printer – the sensor will tell the customer that it’s a fake one,” explained, VP Sajeevan, Senior National Manager – IT Sales at Canon India.
It is difficult for counterfeit product makers to keep up with the technological advancement. But since they offer the spurious products at a much lower price, this differential entices naïve customers into buying the products. The extent of fake goods like printer cartridges and other products has forced consumer and electronics goods majors like Canon, Epson and D-link to devise new ways of making sure that end customer gets a genuine product.
“We at D-Link are fully committed to fight this growing menace of fakes. There are some clear indications that a lot of these fake products are coming from outside India. We are already engaged in a nation-wide effort towards making sure that our customers do not suffer because of these fake products available in the market,” informed, Tushar Sighat, Vice President, Channel Business (India & Saarc), D-Link.
Talking about counterfeit products in the market, one automatically thinks of a few countries where these products are sourced from. While India is not lagging behind the rest of the pack, it is China that is head and shoulder above others in this category of producing fake goods at a fast rate.
Experts close to the industry say that China is the biggest source of counterfeit goods in Asia and piracy rate in China is more than 90%. As much as 30% of the counterfeit products worldwide have their origin coming from the Chinese region.
As a consequence to the fake menace, all Indian metros have become bases for pushing counterfeit products and account for maximum IPR violations. Unknowingly purchasing counterfeit products constitute nearly 95% of the total piracy.
“No one would like to buy a fake product whether it is a bottle of water or a printer cartridge. That is why we are concentrating our efforts to educate the end customer. We know that things will change dramatically once the end customer knows about the genuineness of the product he is buying”, adds on, Sajeevan of Canon.

[Author]

December 20, 2005 at 10:21 AM