What would you do?

[EternalStudent]

Just read this article and thought it would be good to discuss

Mosman Sydney: Champagne Collective claims candle business idea stolen by customer

On first glance they could be the same product, from the same company with the same styling – but the copycat images have been the catalyst of a champagne war on Sydney’s affluent north shore.

amp.news.com.au

The long and short of it is that a business' customer has set up a copycat company using the same suppliers and copying the photography and labelling style... What would you do in this situation?

I would focus on..
* building loyalty and brand evangelists to protect my existing market share
* ensure my fb ads have an edge over the competition
* expand to other suburbs
* use brand evangelists to host "candle parties" similar to tupperware/Avon parties
* stay away from bagging my competitors on instagram!

Keen to hear your ideas

 

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[biophase]

I don't know how it is in Australia, but a copycat that uses the exact same colors, font, etc.. is basically counterfeiting. I would be looking for legal options. If that didn't work, and I had the financial ability, I would undercut the pricing and drive the market down making it not worth it for the copycat. Then I'd launch some variations that she could not copy and sell wherever she sold.

 

[afrankmore]

Just read this article and thought it would be good to discuss

Mosman Sydney: Champagne Collective claims candle business idea stolen by customer

On first glance they could be the same product, from the same company with the same styling – but the copycat images have been the catalyst of a champagne war on Sydney’s affluent north shore.

amp.news.com.au

The long and short of it is that a business' customer has set up a copycat company using the same suppliers and copying the photography and labelling style... What would you do in this situation?

I would focus on..
* building loyalty and brand evangelists to protect my existing market share
* ensure my fb ads have an edge over the competition
* expand to other suburbs
* use brand evangelists to host "candle parties" similar to tupperware/Avon parties
* stay away from bagging my competitors on instagram!

Keen to hear your ideas

You can have a similar business but as biophase stated, using exact likings of a competitor is fraudulent... Now, I would like to touch on this because my program has a similar competitor. The major difference is my competitor specializes in religion and faith based programs, where mine is geared towards secular programs such as mental health and behavioral health. My competitor has maybe 5 or 10 bible quotes per page... In all 3 workbooks I have created, not one bible verse is used.. I am fighting for a different market. Many similarities but very much different.

 

[Kevin88660]

Just read this article and thought it would be good to discuss

Mosman Sydney: Champagne Collective claims candle business idea stolen by customer

On first glance they could be the same product, from the same company with the same styling – but the copycat images have been the catalyst of a champagne war on Sydney’s affluent north shore.

amp.news.com.au

The long and short of it is that a business' customer has set up a copycat company using the same suppliers and copying the photography and labelling style... What would you do in this situation?

I would focus on..
* building loyalty and brand evangelists to protect my existing market share
* ensure my fb ads have an edge over the competition
* expand to other suburbs
* use brand evangelists to host "candle parties" similar to tupperware/Avon parties
* stay away from bagging my competitors on instagram!

Keen to hear your ideas

Pretty much nothing.

I think from the legal angle if you registered a design you can protect it. But i don’t think it applies here with the design style imitation. Basically you cannot protect an “idea”.

There is not much of an barrier if the business is just buying a product and reselling it with some labelling. If it ever had a good margin, the law of economics forces will drive the margin down..as what the market is doing right now.

If you don’t have something proprietary you need to have the volume to drive the margin low to keep competition away and most importantly keep your customers happy.

A lot of books will tell you how you should avoid price competition and provide differentiation. But in reality it is much easier to drive cost and price down and win by volume, than to have your customers buy in the proposition that why they should pay more for your product and service because of xyz.. It is hard to have a strong economics case for a differentiation to justify a premium. Most differentiations claims are a lot less meaningful than what the business owners believe and the customers know that.

A quick glance at the forum questions here always start with “Why my customers do not not see my value?”. Then you have a sea of response telling the OP ignore those who don’t and focus those do. So what to do next? Spend more on marketing? The idea of handling the market response of “Your price is too high” is to spend money to advertisers to find customers who do not mind paying for the high price sounds like a businessman’s delusion on a grand scale to me.

 

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