*NEWS*EPSON & CANON TO TACKLE FAKE CTGS

[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