By ayugup on
Apr. 08, 2017
Forums:
How do you guys who work in retail stay in business. Meaning I do school uniform logos and some logos are licensed to me, but somebody in the town copied all our logos, and they are selling at cheaper prices than us and hurting our business.
PLEASE HELP
Location:
United States
Re: Challanges
The subject i was supposed to put was challenges
Re: Challanges
send them a cease and desist letter from your atty. Business is Business.. not play time. You either sue or hide with your tail between your legs and close shop. sorry.
Modern Embroidery Designer
volant-tech.com
volantfineart.com
Re: Challanges
$300 minimum to draft a C&D letter, easy. OP wouldn't be able to afford the legal cost to fight a "copyright" violation. I had a restraint of trade case against a major manufacturer of material. We're talking downtown Dallas law firm material. Not a single one I spoke with would take it without me throwing a minimum of 10K on a retainer.
OP,
If the designs are licensed by the client to you it's possible the client provided a license to them as well. In your licensing agreement you'll need to look for a clause that establishes you as the sole licensee. It probably won't be there but if it is then the client has actionable recourse against the other place. You generally don't have a case against another shop copying a licensed design of another party.
Did you copyright the designs you created or are they trademarked? If so then you can sue them for violations but be advised this most likely won't be a contingent case and you'll have to front the legal cost. If you win the fees should be paid for by the Defendant. Most likely as soon as the process server delivers the suit the business will close and reopen under a different name.
Re: Challanges
You are correct, as usual, Minimalist. I was hoping a letter might scare the other company... just depends on how aggressive they are.
Any legal win will still result in nothing and I agree with that.
OP,
Maybe you can be more aggressive with your pricing or other value added options? Diversifying into other products and niche markets could also help you?
Modern Embroidery Designer
volant-tech.com
volantfineart.com
Re: Challanges
Thank you for all the suggestions but
I have dealt with a lawyer before, and majority of Lawyer don't do much in Louisiana
Also, The logo is copyrighted by school and we are the only one who have permission to sell it.
Also the school wants everything same, so i cannot change the type of Quality in shirts
We are selling Dickies Shirts with Monogramming for $14.99, but the other company is selling for $12.99 but different brand and a little different color.
I cannot do anything, because the logo isn't copyrighted by me, but by the school.
The other shop has actually bought my shirts and put on their Facebook.
Also, one time, another school send the police to that store, and they still sold the shirts. Nothing major happened during that time. The only thing happened was the store was closed that day.
Even though School is sending people in my store, people are going to go wherever they want, so i cannot do anything
You see what Im dealing with
Re: Challanges
I do not think this is an unusual problem.... so other forum members.... how have YOU handled this type of issue?
I still think undercut the other company to the point of running them off! (hey will be cheaper than the atty fees probably... and MORE enjoyable. ha)
Diversify and have other Niche markets for your revenue stream.
Modern Embroidery Designer
volant-tech.com
volantfineart.com
Re: Challanges
You're assuming the other store does not have an agreement as well.
Police can't enforce civil issues between two parties, they could not do anything in the situation you describe.
The only way you're going to have remedy in this is to set up a method to sell the shirts to the kids/parents at the school. This way the other supplier is cut out temporarily. It will work for a short time until the other supplier screams about preferential treatment. Do you have a contract with the school to provide them logo uniforms as sole source or is it merely a grant of license?
Re: Challanges
The race to the bottom on pricing is won by no one. If the school deal is their main source of income I'd be up there once a week or so helping them create ideas to market t-shirts/embroidery for school events in which we would provide the product at very reasonable prices.
Re: Challanges
The other store doesn't have a agreement, because the school told us.
You are hundred percent right about the fact that the race to the bottom of price is won by no one. The thing i don't like is that the customer i deal with have bad attitudes, and they don't know what they are saying half of the time.
Some of the customers i have, tell the other customers to go there even though they buy from us.
I remember one customer especially buying from us and he just wanted a deal, like buying 2 shirt a little cheaper. We said this is store price, and then he complained saying the other store is giving a deal, why can't you
Also for the school we do some screen printing, but now with online business, they have found it easier just to design the logo in website and order it
Re: Challanges
OK but if the "race to the bottom" did not work.. WalMart would not be in business!
Do you agree??
When I was "empire building" years ago I would target a town... pick one... let's say Nashville...
FREE digitizing for ALL embroidery shops in that town for 90 days...shut out quite a few digitizers that way... built a business. My point is YOU have to be more AGGRESSIVE than your competition or get out. If 90 days did not decimate my competition I would add months to that. Business is a competition... either you are in or you move on. sorry.
Modern Embroidery Designer
volant-tech.com
volantfineart.com
Re: Challanges
Well Business is competition, and just like everything people will go to the cheapest price.
Some of My customers are returning because of Good Quality
Truly the reason Walmart is in great position, is because they have everything. JCPenney ( although a lot cheaper than many stores) is closing multiple stores. Payless is the same.
Truly The Competition is everything, But the American Dream is Dying. Each Walmart store has about 8 Self Checkout lines, and many people are shopping online. and Many American people are losing jobs
I just had a customer who bought shirt for $2 From Amazon. My cost of shirt is $5 or more. How can i sell For $2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6.
In My area, there are people who come just to steal stuff and we have to watch everything.
So The More bottom you go, The More you lose. Its true you have to adjust to Market, But If i drop too low, then what the point of me working.
Re: Challanges
If your client can buy a shirt for 2 bucks.... then why can you not?? We are stuck going through our "normal" distributional, promotional products channels... why? our clients are not so why are we?
Since I offer a service... no bottom there. no cost of goods sold. BUT yet here I am... even though I targeted areas to gain market share my base price is ALOT higher than most digitizers! During the FREE trial periods we hoped to gain a relationship. Touting value added ideas:
Design backup up by a nationally recognized company every 12 hours! (Rackspace)
24/7 access to all your design history... no charge
Experienced digitizers
Website for ordering/quoting/edits/revision
Net 30 terms
Not the best in all aspects of digitizing of course and we never have said so.. BUT when you need a specialty item done we are their go to provider. Many clients have starting digitizing for themselves or have offshored to save money.. but when needed they still come back to us for the very difficult or specialty items. win win
Modern Embroidery Designer
volant-tech.com
volantfineart.com
Re: Challanges
You are right about that
Mostly i get my shirt for around $5 bucks
Re: Challanges
Not necessarily. Walmart has another side of their success that you and I pay for on a daily basis. Just about every time a new store is built there are numerous tax breaks they receive from the city that affect the prices they can get for their merchandise. You or I will not get the same deal. With construction comes infrastructure upgrades. Those are paid for by you and I in the form of gasoline taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes. Their employees generally don't have health insurance due to the low pay and guess who again gets to pay for that in the long run. We could go on and on but I think you get the point. Business is competition but not a level playing field according to the grantors of the "special privileges".
I get it, you lowered your prices to zero to drive competition out. I'll throw in a quote from the FTC:
Pricing below your own costs is also not a violation of the law unless it is part of a strategy to eliminate competitors, and when that strategy has a dangerous probability of creating a monopoly for the discounting firm so that it can raise prices far into the future and recoup its losses.
Is the above quote contradictory? Sure, it's done all the time. Just look at Apple's itunes and expensive storage devices for that medium. Nobody seems to care.
Concerning the low price issue I'll put it this way. Everybody want low prices but those same people want their Walmart stock portfolio to go up in value at the same time.
Re: Challanges
The American Dream died when one party said "there outta be a law". That party bought themselves protection in the form of regulation.
If you want to play the game reduce your expenses and only concentrate on things that are profitable. I assure you that it's much cheaper to buy a bucket, squeegee, and a bottle of soap for $30 then washing windows for $5.00 rather than paying loads of personal property taxes on your inventory and machines each year.
The point of your work is to benefit you. Anything else is a false pretense.
Re: Challanges
Mmm they get cheaper prices in the other place same brand of shirt? I call my distributor and let them know if no action is done ✅ I stop buying from them! I haven't seen an business succeed by been cheaper. At the end how the paid them self?
Re: Challanges
Well then what about Gildan, Dickies( I don't order from dickies anymore), Riders by Lee( I carry Lee), French Toast is carried by cotsco and rainbow and almost now every company you deal with is carried by some other big companies.
Even though I do monogramming, That the main reason I'm surviving in Business. Because other than that Kids want aeropastle pants ( which I dont carry )
When I talked to alphabroder, Big Wholesale company, They said walmart get cheaper than them, and even they can't compete with walmart
Re: Challanges
Funny Story I got to tell you, I work in a Family Business in Louisiana
There is a Bus System which gives out uniform money to employees so they can buy the uniform, they are funded by the public.
They are Given 250-300 dollars, so they can buy uniform. 2 times a year they are given money. They suppose to buy uniform shirt from another place where each shirt cost around $40. and then they come to me to monogram. Now they sell some good Shirts. They are 100% polyester, thick quality, have multiple pen and 1 Glasses Holder.
Its almost like this shirt but 100% polyester
http://www.lapolicegear.com/operator-tactical-polo.html
Now This is what they actually do with the money, They Buy polo Shirts from Walmart ,plain, for like $6, and then they come to monogram for almost $6 each. and sometimes they bring 1 or 2 shirts.
The rest of the money, they spend on themselves. Such as nails, shoes and everything like that.
Now what do you guys think about this story