Not just counterfeit merchandise, but counterfeit STORES

[kenny]

This looks just like a real apple store.







http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/20/chinese_counterfeiting_extends_to_full_blown_fake_apple_retail_stores.html

Chinese counterfeiting extends to full-blown fake Apple retail stores

By Josh Ong
Published: 01:30 AM EST

Extremely detailed knock-off Apple retail stores, complete with blue t-shirt-wearing employees claiming to work for the company, have been discovered in China.

According to the blog BirdAbroad (via ifoAppleStore), several counterfeit Apple stores have popped up in Kunming, China. One such location featured a winding staircase and employees in t-shirts with Apple logos and name tags.

"The name tags around the necks of the friendly salespeople didn’t actually have names on them – just an Apple logo and the anonymous designation “Staff,”" the report read.

The author called the store "the best ripoff store" she had ever seen, though there were several giveaways, such as the poor quality of the staircase and a sub-par paint job. Also, the stores do not appear to have upgraded to Apple's Retail 2.0 layout that uses iPads as "smart signs."

According to her, the employees at the store "all genuinely think they work for Apple." After store security guards and employees prohibited her from taking photos, the author hinted that she and her husband were "two American Apple employees visiting China and checking out the local stores" and were then allowed to photograph the store.

Several of the pop-up stores were located within blocks of each other in Kunming, including one "Apple Stoer" location.


Though Apple products are frequently counterfeited in China, it is rare that copyists will pay enough attention to detail to so closely copy the company's retail store and business model.

The Cupertino, Calif., iPhone maker revealed on Tuesday that sales in Greater China $3.8 billion in the June quarter, a whopping six-fold increase from a year ago. Apple's four official retail stores in mainland China are the company's highest traffic and highest grossing locations.

The company announced plans last February to open 25 retail stores in China over the next couple years in order to keep up with growing demand in the world's most populous nation. Hong Kong will receive its first Apple Store during the September quarter, while two locations in Chengdu are rumored to be in the works.

Apple plans to build 30 new retail locations during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011. The company's retail business brought in a total of $3.5 billion in revenues last quarter.

 

[that_someone_special]

Scary to think even the employees think they work at a real apple store.

 

[ForteKitty]

WhaaaatheFFFF.....

 

[centralsquare]

I saw fake Nike stores when I was in china a year ago...with the swoosh logo and everything. But, they looked obviously fake....from looking at the pictures here, I would definitely be duped by the fake apple stores!

 

[Italiahaircolor]

That's amazingly f'd up.

 

[centralsquare]

That's amazingly f'd up.

It's preTty common in china...you'll be drinking a can of coke and when you look at , say, the ingredients, you'll notice misspellings or something else odd about the can and realize it's fake. It'll have the coca cola logo and everything! Very common!

 

[kenny]

Why doesn't the Chinese government crack down?
Why doesn't Coke and apple crack down?
Why doesn't the US government help?

 

[MissStepcut]

Why doesn't the Chinese government crack down?
Why doesn't Coke and apple crack down?
Why doesn't the US government help?

They really should... because what is America producing besides Intellectual Property and branding?

 

[centralsquare]

Why doesn't the Chinese government crack down?
Why doesn't Coke and apple crack down?
Why doesn't the US government help?

They really should... because what is America producing besides Intellectual Property and branding?

I'm by no means an expert but my sense is that there are just too many to really track down and do something about. I didn't get the sense that there was one fake coke maker....all the fake cokes looked different. Its hard to find and go after tons of small operations.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Why doesn't the Chinese government crack down?
Why doesn't Coke and apple crack down?
Why doesn't the US government help?

b/c you make the rules if you willing to pay the corrupted officials.

 

[TristanC]

In another post, I misplaced 36million chinese nationals in a rounding error. Haha. big country... takes a while to get round to all the details.

Infringement needs to be motivated. So governments will take action if Apple cries foul. Same as most other forms of piracy. I actually detest piracy. If nothing was pirated, the ideal is everything should become cheaper due to the massive size of the market. Wonder if that is a theory or a reality.

Actually, there are tech reports that some of the iphone copies work better than the iphone themselves. hahaha. Reverse engineering rocks.

Scarier than this are the stories about how the apple factory is a death factory, where people are being literally worked to death. Scary.

 

[maplefemme]

So governments will take action if Apple cries foul

The US Government has no power to strong arm the Chinese Government. Countries like Italy and France are hardline when it comes to the sale of counterfeit goods and even the purchase of them as a private consumer can come with heavy fines and jail time and the laws are actively enforced, even if you are a tourist.
Apple outsources production to China as opposed to employing Nationally, stating it as cost prohibitive to manufacture locally.
I agree with you Tristan, I detest piracy, but when you dance with the devil, Apple....

 

[Dancing Fire]

they even sell counterfeit beef.a few years ago i heard some were selling counterfeit eggs,then about two years ago somebody was making/selling counterfeit baby formulas which killed a lot of babies. ..

 

[centralsquare]

Yikes, that's really scary about the formula!!

 

[jewelerman]

Why doesn't the Chinese government crack down?
Why doesn't Coke and apple crack down?
Why doesn't the US government help?

This is really wild to me that someone had the nerve to do this(a whole store!)but its the progression from when someone had the idea 25 plus years ago to make fake Rolex and Cartier watches.I sold Rolex for an authorized jeweler in the late 1980s when Rolex was giving salespeople $5.00 for each counterfeit watch they could take from the customer, smash ,and send to the company.Rolex eventually stopped trying to stop the counterfeiters because it was spending millions in legal fees and its wasn't helping the get rid of the problem.I bet that it will take Apple years and millions to get these stores shut down if they ever do.The consumer is part of the problem. If there wasn't such a large amount being spent on counterfeit designer jewelry,watches, hand bags and sunglasses then this type of business practice wouldn't be so huge.I worked for Ebay and its amazing the mind boggling amount of employee hours that are spent policing counterfeit designer goods and jewelry from China! I don't think the Chinese government will ever really crack down on counterfeiting because it brings in to much money to their country.

 

[maplefemme]

Why doesn't the Chinese government crack down?
Why doesn't Coke and apple crack down?
Why doesn't the US government help?

This is really wild to me that someone had the nerve to do this(a whole store!)but its the progression from when someone had the idea 25 plus years ago to make fake Rolex and Cartier watches.I sold Rolex for an authorized jeweler in the late 1980s when Rolex was giving salespeople $5.00 for each counterfeit watch they could take from the customer, smash ,and send to the company.Rolex eventually stopped trying to stop the counterfeiters because it was spending millions in legal fees and its wasn't helping the get rid of the problem.I bet that it will take Apple years and millions to get these stores shut down if they ever do.The consumer is part of the problem. If there wasn't such a large amount being spent on counterfeit designer jewelry,watches, hand bags and sunglasses then this type of business practice wouldn't be so huge.I worked for Ebay and its amazing the mind boggling amount of employee hours that are spent policing counterfeit designer goods and jewelry from China! I don't think the Chinese government will ever really crack down on counterfeiting because it brings in to much money to their country.

If the Chinese government wanted to put a stop to it they would, they are militant, but I can only imagine the revenue these goods bring in. It would be interesting to know the figures.
A colleague of mine was importing counterfeit Tiffany silver from China and doing home parties part time. She cleared 70k last year before Canada Customs seized one of shipments and told her she can purchase counterfeit goods for personal use but not for resale. If she attempted another shipment she would face charges.
I'm sure masses of shipments pass through customs without detection though and people like my colleague think that there's absolutely nothing wrong with selling these goods, it makes her good money, ethics were never a consideration.
I didn't actually know it was illegal to import counterfeit goods into Canada for resale, at least it's a stand.
As for eBay, I can imagine that being an insurmountable task to police, jewelerman.
I recently found a power seller (100% positive feedback - 1,000s of sales and are also a B&M store ) who were providing fraudulent GIA "appraisals". I asked them who did these appraisals (I'm talking $ evaluations, not grading reports) they said they had personally got them from GIA in Carlsbad. I told them that was impossible, GIA doesn't give appraisals and I reported them. EBay made them remove all of the fraudulent appraisals from their listings and I got a nasty message from the seller. I don't care, consumers have to advocate for themselves, you are right, consumers have a responsibility.
Are there no laws protecting GIA against such fraudulent activity?

 

[Dancing Fire]

if i had a choice i'll always avoid any products made in China.

 

[TristanC]

they even sell counterfeit beef.a few years ago i heard some were selling counterfeit eggs,then about two years ago somebody was making/selling counterfeit baby formulas which killed a lot of babies. ..

Ok, gotta step in a bit here. I am not defending those immoral buggers that killed infants for a profit - there is a special place in damnation reserved for them i'm sure.

But it is a bit too fashionable to call to attention some counterfeit things in China. So much so that many hoaxes were made which are being shared although they are very inaccurate. For the sake of balance, I'll comment on some of them.

The milk was not counterfeit. It was of abyssmally low quality and toxic. What happened was the conscious addition of melamine to the milk as a filler boosted the protein levels (if i recall correctly) of the milk when it was tested for quality, resulting in a higher price for the milk. Of course the melamine was toxic and killed at least 6 infants. Basically kids died so that they could sell crap milk as superior milk for more cash. A year before, 15 kids died due to watered down formulas that left the children malnutritioned. Just this year, a non melamine toxic additive was again found in China milk, for much the same reason (to tamper quality tests) and some kids have again paid the ultimate price.

The milk is real. And it killed people.

Counterfeit eggs are not real. There was a big furore about China making counterfeit eggs and selling them en masse. This was a dupe. Of the media, and of the internet age. Hoax. The Chinese counterfeit tons of things: bags, wallets, tshirts, electronics etc. But the economic cost of an egg is US$0.0012 at wholesale in china. A fake rolex sells for a few hundred US$. Fake Louis Vuitton bags sell for a few $ as well. Nobody is going to get rich counterfeiting something with that low a value and reselling it on when a chicken, if you feed it leftovers, will make one every day without any effort from you.

Same again with the cardboard sourced roast pork. That was a media executive who thought of this elaborate segment that was entirely staged to get airtime in the midst of all the food hoax interest. He basically did a segment that went viral about how some restaurant was making roast pork out of cardboard. He lost his job for that, but the urban myth lives on. This was mentioned in another thread here, but I forget which so I didn't comment.

There is also stories of counterfeit pidgeons made out of rats, and a whole photo collage on the process. Actually, that is just rats being made into rats. There is a rodent demand for some varieties of larger rodent in some parts of china. The fact that the finished product when dressed for the table resembles pidgeon doesn't mean that was what they said it was. I'm sure they serve it as simply, roast rodent.

I haven't seen the part on roast beef being fake in china... but the good old USA has a lot of 'fake beef' too. And it is FDA approved. http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/meat-glue-industry-secret-exposed/ Yup, frankensteak. The glue parcels of lower grade meats to up the market value, or sell them as a more expensive piece of beef.

The difference? In china, they shot 2 people (sorry prolifers. I personally feel they had it coming) involved in the milk scandal, one might get shot soon, a few more have life sentences in chinese prisons (scary). In the USA, ajinomoto's meat glue is still being sold, even on amazon.com.

 

[pregcurious]

It's kind of funny that they put so much effort into making everything look real, then store is spelled incorrectly.

 

[alvina]

sooooooo bad....

 

[kenny]

It's kind of funny that they put so much effort into making everything look real, then store is spelled incorrectly.

I noticed that too.
I was wondering if it was intentional, as if they could say, "Oh we didn't copy an apple store. Ours is different because it is an apple stoer."

 

[centralsquare]

I'm not certain, but I think it is just an accident. There are misspellings of English very frequently, or grammatical errors. The counterfeiting is so blatant, it doesn't seem to me that they misspellings are to protect themselves.

 

[kenny]

Update: China shuts down stores.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14273444

 

[centralsquare]

Update: China shuts down stores.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14273444

Good to hear. The fake stores made the front of cnn.com so I imagine there was a lot of pressure!

 

[Amys Bling]

That's amazingly f'd up.

It's preTty common in china...you'll be drinking a can of coke and when you look at , say, the ingredients, you'll notice misspellings or something else odd about the can and realize it's fake. It'll have the coca cola logo and everything! Very common!

That's crazy!!

 

[centralsquare]

That's amazingly f'd up.

It's preTty common in china...you'll be drinking a can of coke and when you look at , say, the ingredients, you'll notice misspellings or something else odd about the can and realize it's fake. It'll have the coca cola logo and everything! Very common!

That's crazy!!

I could go on and on...fake mickey mouse, fake disney...i feel bad talking this much about it because i did love my time there and have so much respect for the country. but, experiences like finding fake nike stores was just really common.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Update: China shuts down stores.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14273444

Good to hear. The fake stores made the front of cnn.com so I imagine there was a lot of pressure!

they close one fake store then open up two more fakes around the corner,that's how they operate in China.

 

[centralsquare]

Update: China shuts down stores.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14273444

Good to hear. The fake stores made the front of cnn.com so I imagine there was a lot of pressure!

they close one fake store then open up two more fakes around the corner,that's how they operate in China.

Yea and the fact that couldn't close all of the 5 is concerning as well!

 

[Cehrabehra]

I've been reading about this and I'm a bit amused - I don't know what the shock is about I guess. These stores are everywhere. I can think of 3 off the top of my head just in the suburbs of the big city here. I'm guessing across this whole city more than a dozen, easily. I read once that there are only two official stores in China - one in Beijing and one in Shanghai but there are HUNDREDS, probably more than a thousand stores here acting and looking like official apple stores... most even selling real and new apple merchandise on the second hand market. then there is the counterfeit stuff you can get almost everywhere else. You can't find cables though - to buy a cable here is $15 IF you're lucky to find someone who will sell it. I'm talking just the white phone (or ipad) to usb cables that are dirt cheap to purchase online in america (like .01 each plus shipping so you can buy 10 for $5.10.)

Ask me sometime how I feel about all of the counterfeit movies - my answer might surprise you

 

[kenny]

Ask me sometime how I feel about all of the counterfeit movies - my answer might surprise you

How do you feel about all of the counterfeit movies?