Retailers and international manufacturers have agreed that chains will take products off the shelf if their designs are confusingly similar to well-known brands. We are talking only about those foreign names that remained in Russia. The partners signed the agreement at the end of 2022, they told Izvestia in the commonwealth of Rusbrand trademarks. The second party to the agreement was the Association of Retail Trade Companies (AKORT). We are talking about voluntary undertakings, the partners will solve such problems out of court.
As the manufacturers said, retail chains create their own trademarks (PLs), the shape and color scheme of their packaging, plus fonts sometimes cause consumers to associate with well-known brands. Although the name of the products is different, the color matching is confusing for people. We are talking about the so-called parasitic copies, which often end up on the shelf next to the original.
“We are faced with the fact that unscrupulous market participants use packaging elements of popular brands that are recognizable by consumers. First of all, it is the shape and color solutions, it confuses people when shopping. Often they realize that they bought the wrong product after the purchase: chains place such products side by side on the shelf, ”said a representative of this organization.
Domestic brands do not face such a problem, the Russian Perfume and Cosmetic Association noted to the publication.
Consumers can be conservative and prefer popular brands. Therefore, some networks are trying to take advantage of the situation and offer the buyer private labels with similar packaging and branding, but at a better price, Natalya Nazarova, head of the Institute for the Development of Entrepreneurship and Trade, told Izvestia.
Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:
What kind of brand: chains will remove copies of goods from foreign brands from the shelves