Cheap 'branded' items available at factory outlets

Friday, April 27, 2001
By Hera Diani

JAKARTA (JP): Factory outlets have become very popular among shopping freaks in this country.
It refers to a store where you can buy branded clothes, shoes and other fashion accessories at prices much lower than at official counters.
How is that possible?
The products are said to be surplus export products or rejected items. The labels have usually been cut, although many are still left on the clothes.
However, many suspect that the products at factory outlets are counterfeit.
One such person is lawyer George Widjojo, who once represented Adidas in a product counterfeiting case.
"If the products are surplus, then how come the quality is much lower than the original? The difference is really obvious," he told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Thursday.
A DKNY shirt, which costs hundreds of thousands of rupiah at an official outlet, for example, is available for less than Rp 50,000 (US$4.16).
Yongki Dwi Subagyo, general manager of Link Stok which has several stores in the capital, denied that the products were counterfeit.
"We have a factory in Cileungsi, Bogor, which exports clothes to the United Kingdom. Surplus products and seconds are sold here in our shops with permission from the license holder in the UK," he told the Post.
However, Yongki admitted that there were many producers who used leftover export fabrics to make their products.
"They then sew them and put well-known brands on them," he said.
Such a practice is indeed counterfeiting and is a copyright violation, but so far there have been no lawsuits filed regarding violations.
According to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights' director general for intellectual property rights, A. Zen Umar Purba, so far there have been no complaints from license holders about products being copied and sold at factory outlets.
"Therefore, we can't do anything. It's not that we encourage such practices, but if there are no complaints, we can't do anything," he told the Post on Tuesday.
"You see, intellectual property rights are private rights, not public. So it depends on the owner, whether they file a complaint or a lawsuit or not," he added.
Purba said that many companies were reluctant to file suit as the legal process would burden them and cost them a lot.
"It's common in the United States, for example. Some license holders there let products, such as perfume, be distributed with the same brand and packaging as their products. They claim the targeted market is different anyway," he asserted.
That several companies were reluctant to comment on the matter when contacted verifies Purba's claims.
"So far, we haven't found any copyrights violations of our products," said a manager at PT Great River International who declined to be named.
Great River is a license holder for 30 brands such as Arrow, Triumph and Lee, which can be easily found at lower prices at factory outlets.
When asked about this, the manager refused to comment, saying she had no authority to do so.
Meanwhile, Chris Helzer, external affairs director for Southeast Asia region at Nike Inc., said that the company had found fake Nike products in virtually every country around the world.
"Companies like Nike are hurt because consumers that purchase counterfeit products are defrauded," he said when contacted via e-mail.
Nike, he added, invests a great deal to develop the products and if the items are copied, they cannot get an adequate return on the investment.
Helzer did not elaborate on whether the company planned to take legal measures, but said "we hope to work together with all parties to stop counterfeiting activities".
Separately on Thursday, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri also expressed concern over intellectual property rights violations, which she said had resulted in big losses.
In a written statement marking International Intellectual Property Rights Day on Thursday, Megawati acknowledged that law enforcement was still poor.
"There has to be breakthrough steps in overcoming the problem. We also need a solid intellectual property rights system," she said as quoted by Antara.
The system, she added, is not only important for law enforcement but also to improve economic growth.
For consumers, however, factory outlets are a savior in times of economy crisis when everything appears expensive.
Desy, 27, is a regular customer at a factory outlet because of the prices.
"The quality of some products may not be that good. They sometimes shrink or get bigger after washing, but most of them are OK," she said.
And for many other customers, the most important thing is they can enjoy "branded" products, the originals of which are out of their price range.

Labels: culture, urban

Posted by hera at Friday, April 27, 2001 3:33 AM | Permalinks