Investigation On Fake Goods In "Foreign Trade Village": Avoiding Counterfeit Goods And Selling Them At Night

Every evening from 5:00 to 7:00 is the business hours of the foreign trade village.

Thousands of "clothing brands" were gathered in Changshu City for more than 2000 hours. "Big brands" such as Nike, Adidas and Prada were packed into black bags and handed over to wechat merchants, online shop owners and entity owners waiting outside the door.

Subsequently, these three standards complete, the price less than one tenth of the price of the genuine goods, were sent to all parts of the country.

In order to avoid the strict investigation by the industrial and commercial departments, the shop owners only opened half of the rolling shutter door to place orders online and deliver goods at night. A "fake" carnival was going on quietly.

In the face of rampant fake industry chain, in recent years, Changshu regulatory authorities have launched more and more severe "anti-counterfeiting" actions.

According to local reports, at the beginning of this year, the economic investigation team of Changshu Public Security Bureau filed 56 cases of infringement of intellectual property rights, involving a total amount of 180 million yuan, destroyed more than 70 counterfeit dens, arrested 57 criminal suspects and seized more than 230000 infringing and counterfeit articles.

Foreign trade village open at night

Selling fake clothes in the daytime

There are more than 2000 clothing stores in the village.

A 500 meter long road passes through the village, with women's clothing shops in the South and men's clothing gathering in the north. Most of the buildings are single buildings. In addition to the first floor facade, there are clothing stores in narrow alleys. A single house can squeeze into more than ten clothing stalls.

Foreign trade village is located in Mocheng street of Changshu City, which is composed of several surrounding villages. This is the local foreign trade clothing distribution center, because of the hot sale of foreign trade clothing, spread the name of "foreign trade village".

On a wall in the west of the village, there are slogans of "welcome to foreign trade village" and "clothing ocean, foreign trade first-class source base". However, in recent years, the foreign trade village is famous for its hot sale of "big brand fake goods", and has been exposed by the media for many times.

Even if the local regulatory authorities continue to crack down, the counterfeit market in the foreign trade village is still rampant. A clothing store owner disclosed to the Beijing News reporter that in order to avoid inspection, the fake goods stalls in the foreign trade village have been changed to "open at night".

In early November, the Beijing News reporter visited the foreign trade village and found that there were more than 2000 clothing stores gathered here. However, during the day, there were few pedestrians and the shop doors were closed. "It's a dead city in the daytime." A woman in the clothing business described that shops that were closed during the day were making "fake goods".

Wang Qiu, the boss of a pajama shop, said that two or three years ago, the business hours here were still nine to five in the morning. "Now it's just the opposite, because we didn't do much checking for fake goods before, but now it's strictly checked."

After 5 o'clock in the evening, the foreign trade village became lively.

This is a different picture. The streets less than two meters wide are packed with tricycles and motorcycles. Pedestrians can only walk on the steps near the shop entrance, and the sound of horns and shouts are mixed together.

The shops here are different from normal clothing stores. Some stalls only hang two or three rows of clothes as samples, more clothing stores even have no clothes, only a pile of packed black plastic bags with numbers or customer nicknames on them.

The clothes of these shops are all "big brands", at least dozens of yuan a piece, expensive hundreds of yuan a piece. In addition to sports brands such as Nike and Adidas, there are also high-end and even luxury brands such as Canada goose and Burberry.

Beijing News reporter in the foreign trade village investigation for many days, randomly visited dozens of clothing stalls, found that these shops are selling "fake brand". A number of shop owners told the Beijing news that most of the shops in the foreign trade village are engaged in fake goods business, roughly estimated that the scale has exceeded 2000.

Lifelike fake

"Sales to wechat stores and physical stores are the same as those of genuine products"

Fake goods are the open secret of foreign trade village. Stall owners are also not afraid to introduce their home goods to customers how "lifelike.".

Xiao Jia has a clothing stall in sangyuan new village. There are sports brands such as champion, Nike and Adidas in his shop. "We do it 1:1, and we can copy to whatever level we can. If you don't compare it with the real one, you can't tell it's fake. "

Gao Lang's shop is in the North Village of Fanjia lane. Most of the clothes in her shop are famous women's clothes. "If you put on the label of La chapel, it's La chapel's." During the conversation, she took out a black bag from the corner of the counter and took out a FILA sweater with labels and tags, which cost 80 yuan. "Compared with authentic products, even grams are the same, we all sell them as genuine products."

In the foreign trade village, the same brand of fake goods, also because of the quality of good or bad produce price differences.

Beijing News reporter in a main store of Canada goose down jacket saw that the same appearance of three down jackets, but marked 650 yuan, 550 yuan, 245 yuan three prices. The boss said that the amount of velvet, fabric and technology of each model are different, "650 yuan price can reach the same level as the real product."

Clothes of different quality will be distinguished by the stall owners and sold to online stores, physical stores and wechat stores respectively.

The boss of the down jacket shop said: "cheap online stores do more, good quality should be sold in physical stores." A physical store in Henan takes 550 yuan of each down jacket from his home and sells it for more than 1000 yuan locally.

Han Wei's stall owner sells fake sports brands, and physical stores are his big customers. According to Han Wei, his goods are sold to physical stores, such as some brand discount stores. (the physical store sells fake goods) it depends on whether it can be done locally and how to sell it. The physical store will handle it by itself. "

One stop business

Ten thousand yuan, big brand, 100 yuan, 1 yuan, customized, big brand, three standards

Big brand, low price, is the biggest temptation of foreign trade village fake market.

The Beijing News reporter found that these so-called "big brand" clothes were originally three no products without any labels. In order to open up the market, the stall will provide customers with a one-stop service of customizing "three standards".

The so-called "three labels" and "brand" are the so-called "water label" and "brand name". In the foreign trade village, after the sign is put up, a brand sweater with an official price of nearly 10000 yuan can be picked up for 200 yuan, and even has a special hand bag.

Near the "double 11", a stall boss told reporters that their family of three or four employees, daily distribution will take two or three hours, "a lot of customers are big online stores, a time to take goods is thousands of pieces."

Gao Lang's shop has several coats without labels. When she introduced them to customers, she said that every item was the same as the online Red model and the same model as the star. Gao Lang said that no one was in charge of hanging it for a day, but there was "risk" in installing the brand. But in gaolang's wechat album, brands such as "La chapel" and "only" are still included in the introduction. She said that now the inspection is strict, the store does not hang the label, but if the customer needs, it can be customized.

Reporters gathered in a dozen new shops in Beijing to make a survey. On November 13, a well-known shopkeeper told the Beijing news that "before and after the double 11" campaign, the industry and commerce were closely checked and did not dare to make brand labels. "Before, many stores here were doing brand labels."

He introduced the reporter to Shanghai road one kilometer away, a street with more than 20 accessories stores. Reporters randomly into a accessories store, shop owner quote, "brand mark 5000 to do, each 10 to 15. It's better to have a genuine label. We'll copy it and we'll give you exactly the same. "

The small commodity market near Shanghai road is also a gathering area of clothing accessories stores. The owner's wife of a shop along the street took out a bag of champion's Woven logo and said, "you can take it if you want.". She then took out a full set of samples with different brands, including Adidas, puma, Dickies, new balance, and Nike. "A complete set of lead, wash, tag, about 1 yuan."

Secret trade

Online wechat offline single line black bag transportation

In the face of the rampant fake industry chain, Changshu regulatory authorities have launched a more severe "crackdown on counterfeit goods".

According to public reports, law enforcement departments of Changshu have been investigating and dealing with fake goods in foreign trade villages since at least 2016. In 2017, Changshu City successively dispatched more than 100 police officers, destroyed eight manufacturing and selling fake warehouses, seized counterfeit sports brands such as Adidas and Nike, and counterfeited clothing, bags and watches of luxury brands such as Burberry, Versace and Prada, with a total amount of more than 20 million yuan.

In August 2019, Changshu Market Supervision Bureau, together with the public security organs, launched a full chain law enforcement and rectification action on the production, storage and sales of Changshu clothing in the urban area. Law enforcement officials said that with the deepening of law enforcement, the phenomenon of selling counterfeit brand-name clothing in shops has been basically eliminated. However, the sales mode of illegal businesses has changed to the network sales mode, and the production and storage dens are more hidden and scattered.

Under the increasingly severe crackdown, the fake shopkeepers in the foreign trade village have made the transaction more secret.

Even when it's open at night, some clothing stores only pull up a third of their doors. A number of shop owners told the Beijing news that they were selling fake goods, and the industrial and commercial departments were strict in their investigation and did not dare to open all the doors.

Beijing News reporter visits found that in the foreign trade village, "scan code" is the most common means of attracting customers. The stall owners are afraid to put fake goods in the store, so they hang the QR code of wechat and wechat photo album app at the door. Customers can scan the code to see the product information and photos uploaded by the store, and then select and order.

When they sweep the shop, they will get a reward of two yuan for each shop. Even the roadside snack stalls have launched the business of sweeping the yard to send sausage and corn.

A stall owner said that in order to avoid inspection, the owner here has a "tacit understanding". They all ask customers to place an order before 3pm and pick up the goods that day. The store packed and distributed goods in advance in the warehouse, and then took the goods to the shop in the foreign trade village. Each stall in the foreign trade village plays different roles in the market. Some stalls have their own factories and supply goods to other stalls at the same time. "Industry and commerce is to grasp the people and goods, I went to pick up the goods in the afternoon, and sent them away in the evening. How can I check it?"

When night fell, the narrow streets and alleys of the foreign trade village were still full of people taking goods. They call out a number at the door, pick up the black bag thrown by the boss of the stall, and quickly load it away. Their time is only two hours in the evening.

The "illegal production" which has been banned repeatedly

At the beginning of the year, more than 70 dens were destroyed and settled in shopping malls

At the beginning of this year, Changshu launched a stronger crackdown on counterfeit goods. According to local reports, the economic investigation team of Changshu Public Security Bureau filed 56 cases of infringement of intellectual property rights, involving a total amount of 180 million yuan, destroyed more than 70 counterfeit dens, arrested 57 criminal suspects and seized more than 230000 infringing and counterfeit articles.

But the fake industry in the foreign trade village did not stop. A stall owner revealed that in addition to the merchants in the foreign trade village, many people have done the fake business in the nearby regular clothing city, and "white washing" has become a genuine one.

In early November, the Beijing News reporter visited the shopping malls and found that many stalls were selling all kinds of "big brand clothes".

Two years ago, Liu Fang, together with many shop owners, retired from sangyuan new village and rented a stall on the fourth floor of the world clothing center to become a genuine manufacturer. However, 22 of her products are shown in her wechat album Ncler, descent, Burberry, etc. Every day, she put a truck in the North Lane of the village.

Zhao Qiang, who has been a "fake brand" in the foreign trade village for many years, is not surprised by this situation. He said frankly that in recent years, some people are worried about being checked and moved to the shopping mall, but many people have been pouring into the foreign trade village.

Xiong Chao, a lawyer with Beijing Jingshi law firm, said that the manufacture and sale of large-scale counterfeit goods involved infringement of intellectual property rights and trademark rights of brands, and the manufacturers and sellers of counterfeit goods should bear corresponding criminal or civil liabilities.

Article 214 of the criminal law stipulates that anyone who knowingly sells commodities with counterfeit registered trademarks and whose sales amount is relatively large shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the amount of sales is huge, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined.

Xiong Chao said that even though the legal punishment is strong, in reality, it is difficult for the brand side to protect its rights. "The general brand ability is limited, not every infringement can be found and protected."

Recently, the reporter consulted the official hotlines of Nike, Adidas and the north face on the issue of counterfeit goods. All the three brands said that there was no special channel for complaints about fake goods, only the goods sold on the official platform of the brand were handled. It was suggested that consumers who bought fake goods should dial 315 complaint telephone to protect their rights.

(Wang Qiu, Xiao Jia, Gao Lang, Han Wei, Liu Fang and Zhao Qiang are pseudonyms)