Counterfeits give headaches to makers of the genuine article

Clothes, footwear, cosmetics, safety helmets – if an item bears a well-known Vietnamese brand name and it’s offered for sale in the market here at half price or less, it’s probably counterfeit. Tuoi Tre reports.

Counterfeit goods are ubiquitous

An Dong Market in HCM City is the biggest wholesale market in the southern region, famous as a place where fashion products can be found. There at the market, one can find imitation shirts, T-shirts and jeans bearing the brand names leading Vietnamese makers Viet Thy, Ninomax, FOCI or Ha Gatini selling at just half the price of the genuine article. For example, a fake Ha Gatini cardigan sweater is offered for 130,000 dong, whereas the real thing costs 300,000 dong.

Small merchants at An Dong Market said that most of these counterfeit goods are being made at workshops in HCM City, but the counterfeited blue jeans are imports from China and Thailand.

An Dong and Binh Tay Markets – both in District 5 (Cho Lon, the former ‘Chinese quarter’) are considered a ‘paradise’ of counterfeit shoes, cosmetics and handbags. A box of a certain name brand face powder at Binh Tay Market is 120,000 dong, while the genuine product sold at Zen Plaza is 500,000 dong. Genuine Essance face powder, costs 120,000 dong per container, but a convincing fake can be purchased at Binh Tay for only 40,000.

The Quality Assurance and Testing Centre 3 (Quatest 3) has found a lot of counterfeit motorcycle helmets on the market. Counterfeit helmets appear on the market right as soon as producers launch new models. While genuine products may sell at 70,000 dong per product, counterfeit goods are selling at 30,000 dong only at ‘pavement markets’.

The HCM City Market Control Department said that it recently has discovered some workshops with thousands of counterfeited helmets in stock.

Also according to that agency, glasses, watches, candies and drinks are the products that can be most easily counterfeited. For example, just as soon as an enterprise marketed a kind of sweet it called Chupa Chups, a perfect copy appeared as well. Variations on the well-known preserved fruit (mut ) brand Golia promptly appear as ‘Gogola,’ ‘Colia’ or ‘Comia.’

Legitimate producers suffer

Le Huu Loc is Director of Nhan Loc Trade and Production Company, which makes and markets cosmetics products. He said that the biggest problem the company faces is counterfeit goods.

“We spend a lot of time and money to make our brands well known to customers. Counterfeiters get a free ride,” Loc said. He added that in some cases, the counterfeit goods are imports from China.

Dang Quynh Doan, Director of Viet Thy Fashion Company said that counterfeit goods appear just as soon as the company launches new collections. Many times, customers will come to complain about the quality of products. However, it turns out that the products were not made by Viet Thy.

Phan Van Kiet, Deputy General Director of shirtmaker Viet Tien, says that every year, the company spends up to five billion dong to publicize how to recognize genuine ‘Viet Tien’ products, logos and shops. Especially, Kiet said, the company has to send staff to the market to find examples of counterfeited Viet Tien products.

According to Doan, it is infeasible to file for industrial pattern protection for every item in of its fashion collection, because it costs too much money and time. “The best solution to fight counterfeiting is to ‘complicate’ products, improve their quality and advertise them well. For example, instead of using simple fabric, Viet Thy is trying to use special patterned fabric.

Tuoi tre

Tags: Vietnam fake goods, Vietnam goods