Hi guys I found this on the Tial webpage, I wonder how much money these copy cat companies spend to copy other companies products?
Here is a link to spot a fake Tial!!!
http://www.tialsport.com/realvsfake.html
the gayest part is that some of the copy cats are selling them as real, that hurts Tial but it also hurts the buyers who are lied to as well.
I feel for them but TiAL takes it too far though with their policing of eBay. I mentioned that I thought the Borg Warner 40mm wastegate that I was selling: “as good as TiAL” and I got some gay counterfeit threat from TiAL/eBay.
But some companies get it far worse like Nismo…I found out of 1500 eBay listings only 35 were real. But they obviously dont care.
EDIT: New Taiwan fake “MADE IN USA” is classic.
your article on the subject was good shit…
Spoon was saying their sales have been affected 40% from branded fakes.
Yeah I was honoured to write that, industry guys are still thanking me for it…one at a conference in LA just last week!
These companies unfortunately have to play hardball, be innovative and educate the public. I think some of them turtle hoping it will go away. I think convincing someone that a part that will likely fail, causing death and destruction should be easy.
Clothing and luxury goods market was hard hit too but have rebounded since they fought it.
i dont think the guys in the industry are savvy enough to fight it properly.
if you recall my midnight shpeel about Greddy’s moves you catch my drift… they have since discontinued the M-Spec brand though… funny, they could have just asked my opinion on the subject rather than cannibalize tens of thousands of dollars of sales…
What they should start doing is fining the retailers how choose to sell the knockoff products. The new knockoff that are being made in Taiwan looks real!!!
It has hit everyone very hard. They didn’t see it coming or even comprehend the threat. As a result many companies are taking it on the chin. You need deep pockets to defend yourself but good relationships with media and online retailers help.
As a magazine though it is tough to turn away ad money. We know some of these designs are questionable albeit not outright counterfeits.
Alot of legitimate retialers are readily accepting and actively marketing knock off gear.
Megan Racing and Circuit Sports are prime examples.
the margins are better on it and people want it.
i already know how to take control back, i’ve wrote about it…
Yeah but can Megan and Circuit Sports really be considered “knock-off”? Yes they’re budget brand stuff, but they’re not being marketed as “GReddy”, or “SPL”, they’re being marketed as their own brand… It’s not really the same thing IMO.
I read what you wrote a few months ago about “budget” stuff and how it affects the sport, and I agree with it. However, like I said, “budget brand” products aren’t nearly the same as knock-off stuff being branded as “Bride” or “TiAL” or whatever…
I agree, the knockoffs are going to far!!! atleast the old fake Tial you could have notice, but not the new one.
i agree with what you are saying; the issues are blurred and for the purposes of the article that Dave oversaw they are one and the same.
the items i submitted to the review were not being branded as Greddy but they were obvious copies of Greddy products.
The only difference between the outright fakes and the unbranded parts is the logo and marketing. the products themselves are 100% the same.
what makes it even more confusing is when retailers / brands take their knock-offish wares and blend them into a semi-original product line up. Megan has done an incredible job of further blurring the line.
some items they sell, same as with Circuit sports, are the exact same just with a different sticker… i sell hundreds of these same items just without the Megan or Circuit sport logo on them.
but then Megan gets their own coilovers that are a very decent product and all of a sudden the less discerning consumer who is incapable of enough critical thought to distinguish among products in the line up attributes the +++ of the coilovers to the other items that are no different than anything else.
an example of this with circuit sports is their coolant resevoirs and their 5 lug hubs that are better than the Ichiba ones… and good enough to make Peak discontinue thier offering.
for me, my multi-link and fibreglass stuff serve the same offsetting purposes, though perhaps not was well as the majors.
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another interesting part is the premium these lower end brands are able to attached to the rebranded products. CS and Megan are supposed to be budget brands and yet they each sell endlinks that retail for like $80usd. i sell the same unbranded endlinks for $60 cdn.
if these same endlinks were branded HKS you would be paying $139usd for the same thing. funny how the budget brands have generated enough brand-equity to premium price their stuff? Not as much as the big guys, but still more than $0
that is an important symbolic measurement.
The sales figures are a purely financial measure of performance against which Greddy and HKS likely still outsell the cheaper stuff. However, if they thought these lesser players were going to stay at the low end of the market they are dead wrong and the ability for these lesser brands to premium price unbranded products is pure, unquestionable proof of that.