In last two years, there have been hundreds of news reports, companies release and market feed received by the Ply Reporter, where duplicate material complaints are either legally processed or strong worded notices are delivered to accused parties. Now when there is sharp rise in supply and market is slow, there is a sharp rise in selling of duplicate stamped material according to various reports and industry sources. Recently leading plywood brand Century Ply team had conducted a comprehensive raid in Kolkata. and seized counterfeit plywood products naming Century Ply Club Prime stamp. Green Ply too has been acting tough on such occurrence strictly. After fighting for long brands like Kitply has opted for ways to curb duplicity but the copy makers are now not leaving emerging brands.
Brands like Archid, Uniply, Smarat, Sonear, Anchor, Garnet, Austin, Alishan too have witnessed this kind of deceit and have taken counter measures. Delhi based Bhutan Tuff Plywood also conducted raids in Delhi-NCR region with the help of local police and seized heavy quantity of fake plywood with its brand name. Besides, other plywood brands like Virgo, Agni, Magnus etc are also facing such issues frequently. The companies are conducting such raids and seized materials time to time in different market, but they are worried due to increase such cases which is damaging the image, goodwill and business of branded products.
Sources from different market confirmed the growing supply of counterfeit plywood products, which has been denting the image of brands along with products. The branded plywood manufacturing company’s owners and officials express their concern to the Ply Reporter correspondent’s saying ‘they are worried due to counterfeit materials distributed by known people only, which has been affecting their good will and business both. According to companies, these spurious quality materials are now severely damaging image of products because the quality is far below than standard manufacturing norms.
The companies say that they regularly receive such complaints from market and in recent time, such cases are reported to increase as per market report. They say that they keep conduct raid on such plywood dealers time to time with the help of local police and most of the time they have got such counterfeit plywood products. They also informed, many times the dealers copy identical brand name to make customers fool, which is also illegal.
Brands have increased the vigil and checks on fake and duplicate stamped material because it is directly inflicting on the sales and margins. The point is that ‘Brands’ be it national or regional, they must stay alert to keep a check on cities where they have been popular in market.