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Marketplace Scratch Pad

Not just fake goods, fake stores

Scott Jagow Apr 22, 2009

Our Shanghai bureau chief Scott Tong directed me to this story in the Shanghai Daily. Chinese officials have added entire stores to their list of intellectual property rights violations.

Here’s the example they gave:

The Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau said that a man surnamed Jin opened a supermarket named “Tesco” in Jiading District last year. The store had eye-catching Tesco logos on its membership cards, bags, price labels, receipts and staff uniforms.

The store, however, was not an official branch of the Tesco hypermarket.

The bureau’s Jiading District branch shut the store and fined Jin 100,000 yuan (US$14,650).

I mean, selling fake Hello Kitty shoes is one thing, but opening an entire counterfeit supermarket? That’s bold.

Scott Tong Tweets: Just don’t mess with Trader Zhou’s in my ‘hood.’

Trader Zhou’s sounds like Trader Joe’s in Chinese, but it’s not affiliated with the US chain. Trader Joe’s doesn’t have branches in China. But Trader Zhou’s isn’t a supermarket either. It only sells wine.

Let’s see. Two American dollars equals 13.6 yuan. I wonder if they sell 13.6 yuan chuck?

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