Source: ORM Portal - Belém / PA - CAPA - 06/05/2010

There is no shame about piracy in Shanghai. The address where you can see the unhealthy coexistence between large stores of the most famous brands and their Chinese counterparts is Nanjing Road, right in the center of the city. The immense boardwalk with super-lit buildings is packed with tourists and Chinese, who sell everything: flashlight, wheels to adapt to shoes and skate without having to buy skates.

 

Salespeople fight a real battle for customers with an Englishman focused on doing business: good friend, good price, that is, good friend, good price. This is how one of the sellers insists on starting the negotiation, which counts on the help of a calculator to display the values.

At the beginning of the bargain, a badly finished mascot from Expo 2010, Haibao, comes out for the same price as the certified product. But just talk that it is possible to take two at half the asking price. This happens right next to the Expo's official store.

 

Piracy on Nanjing Road is not just for street vendors. It has a registered trademark and business license. There are entire malls with imitations of the most famous brands. The Shanghai Land Mark is an example of this. Cosmetics, shoes and shirts can be purchased for a much lower price.

To facilitate identification, the names are adapted to the taste of those who have not yet educated their jaws for Western pronunciation. Thus, the Japanese Shiseido, becomes Shicedo, entitled to an oriental model in the same pose as the international tops that star in the giant's campaign in the cosmetics business.

 

The French LOccitane becomes LOccitown and sells the Brazilian nut cream, Brazil Nut, one of the brand's stars. LOreal remains LOreal, and still bears the identification of its Parisian “origin”.

Nike has a huge four-storey store on the street, which can charge 1300 yuan for a shirt, about R $ 320, but the cheapest similar can be found in an Anta store, on the same boardwalk, for 90 yuan.

 

Anta's store is practically the same as Nike's, with some patriotic changes: instead of using Nike's slogan to support the American Basketball League, the NBA - I love NBA - Anta invented support for CBA, the correspondent in China and stamped I love CBA on the immense entrance panel, with a photo of oriental basketball stars.

 

All of this piracy does not keep out the big brands, on the contrary. Adidas has already surrounded a huge historic building on Nanding Road, close to one of the most beautiful places in the city, The Bund. The property that takes up almost a block will be your store on the street.

 

Chanel, Dior, Armani, Rolex, also maintain stores on Nanding Road, where it is also possible to buy similar ones along the boardwalk. Lacoste even charges 1.380 yuan for a shirt, just over R $ 340, 00 and its similar can be bought for 90 yuan, about R $ 22 in a store 300 meters away. In the application of the counterfeit product, however, the alligator's eyes and spots are missing.

Counterfeits are nothing new and have been occurring since the government began economic reforms in the 80s. Chinese companies started to produce everything and take advantage of the technology of the big brands that transferred their production lines to the Asian country, attracted abundant and cheap labor. China produces everything: car parts, designer handbags and even cheap imitations of Viagra, the drug against sexual impotence.

 

China is under pressure from developed countries to fight piracy, but because it is an industry, employs thousands of people and moves a mountain of money, the government adopts two speeches: one outwardly, disapproving the practice and the other internally, of tolerance .

Source: Agency Brazil