Werner Sandten * is worried about his business existence. “Since the
Chinese low-cost suppliers flood Amazon, we sell virtually nothing,” he
says. Soon his whole industry could go broke, “one after another”. The
legislature must finally ensure fair competition. “But apparently nobody
wants to mess with Amazon.”Toner Chips for Photo Copiers
Some
days ago someone dared to do it. The German shoe manufacturer
Birkenstock announced the cooperation of the world’s largest online
retailer . His allegation: Amazon does not do enough to counter product
counterfeiting. Apparently, the platform in Neustadt,
Rhineland-Palatinate, has become more of a threat than an opportunity.
And with this view, Birkenstock is not alone.
Werner Sandten is
the boss of a manufacturer of alternative printer cartridges. These
self-building, which do not infringe any patents, are with the devices
of Epson, Canon Show chart or HP Show chart compatible, but usually cost
only a third to half as much as original cartridges. The success of the
business model has been a sign of business in German cities for many
years. These are names such as toner dumping, Druckmal or Dr. Ing. Fill
replicas and refill.
Between alternative cartridge producers such
as Pelikan, Edding or Peach and the original manufacturers, there were
always friction. Processes were brought against each other or cartridges
with special chips were used to make the use of legal alternative
products impossible. On the whole, however, both groups existed side by
side.
Meanwhile, however, a third group pushes brute in the market:
Chinese vendors who copy cartridges – to sell them on platforms such as
Amazon or Ebay at trickle prices. Many companies started as suppliers to
Western manufacturers before becoming their competitors. Meanwhile,
according to official figures alone in the southern Chinese port city of
Zhuhai about 60 percent of all alternative printer cartridges and 35
percent of all refilled toner cartridges are produced worldwide.
“Many
of these sellers are not playing fair,” says Charles Brewer of the
print-market analysis firm Actionable Intelligence. “That’s a real
problem.” The cartridges from China are for the most part one-to-one
replicas of the original products, Brewer also referred to as “clones”.
The manufacturers do not care about existing patents.
Sign In
