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[gitanes]

В свежем номере Fobes попалась забавная статья о сегодняшей ситуации с ZIPPO

Вот ссылка http://members.forbe...artner=yahoomag

Если не грузится, то текст ниже

Pirate's Ball
Deborah Orr 04.16.07


In Pictures: Small Town, Big Problem


In Pictures: Can You Spot A Rip-Off From The Real Thing?



Zippo has been making flip-top pocket lighters at the same factory in Bradford, Pennsylvania for 75 years--50,000 of them a day last year. Factories in China can churn out just as many. That's a big problem for the company because it doesn't make any pocket lighters in China. The Chinese Zippos are all counterfeit.

The business of counterfeiting has gotten more insidious. Pirates used to focus their attention on high-price apparel and accessories, like Coach (nyse: COH - news - people ) bags and Rolex watches. Now they go after everyday products. There's money to be made. A fake lighter that is worth 50 cents if anonymous might fetch $5 wholesale if adorned with a Zippo, Cartier or Dunhill logo.

Genuine Zippo lighters have a lifetime guarantee. Every day the company's repair department receives at least one fake, from someone who probably had no idea it wasn't genuine. They look so real that even Zippo Chief Executive Gregory Booth can't tell the difference. "The only way we can know for sure is to take out the insides and look at it with a magnifying glass," he says.

Zippo earns nothing on the sales of the fakes. The company figures it has lost a third of its earnings to counterfeiters. Sales are less than the $195 million of a decade ago, and in September Zippo had to lay off 120 people, or 15% of its workforce. The discharges were felt keenly in Bradford, where this family-run business is the largest employer. And there are safety issues: Zippo was twice sued when fake lighters malfunctioned, says Charles Jeffrey Duke, Zippo's chief lawyer and grandnephew of the founder. One victim died after leaking lighter fluid ignited his clothing. Booth and Duke spend a lot of time chasing down pirates and lobbying Washington and Beijing.

Eastman Machine, in Buffalo, New York, is another manufacturer that saw its production moved to China without ever leaving home. A manufacturer branding itself "Westman" reverse-engineered Eastman's $2,000 fabric-cutting machines, even using the same model numbers and paint colors. Eastman has lost more than half its sales and laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. It tried ad campaigns imploring customers to buy only genuine machines and parts--until pirates started labeling their fakes "genuine Eastman." Eastman sued and lost.

Another victim is Heelys (nasdaq: HLYS - news - people ), a Carrollton, Texas startup that makes sneakers with wheels in the heels. The shoes are a hit with 10-year-olds in the U.S. and an even bigger hit with Asian tweens. In 2003 half of the company's sales came from Japan and South Korea, until pirated Heelys started flooding the Asian market. Last year only 14% of Heelys were sold outside the U.S., mainly to Canada.

The counterfeiting that is costing branded U.S. producers $250 billion a year and 750,000 jobs has moved well beyond pirated DVDs and luxury accessories. Knockoffs are turning up in the most mundane product lines: Duracell batteries, Head & Shoulders shampoo, extension cords with the Underwriters Laboratories-tested safety seal--anything with a recognized brand.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development says that known fakes make up perhaps 2% of wholesale goods traded worldwide. Add in the value of knockoffs that don't cross borders and the vast majority that aren't detected by customs and the figure is much higher. This can also be a crime against the public fisc: Lost sales mean lost tax revenues. New York City's comptroller pegs forgone tax revenue at $1 billion a year from street sales of counterfeits.

What happened?

Some companies played right into the pirates' hands by giving too much leeway to Chinese manufacturing partners. "Companies investing in China have not only shared their technology but their marketing and packaging as well," says Bradford Huther, anticounterfeiting bulldog of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. No wonder some fake goods look so authentic; they are made in the same factory as the real ones--the so-called third shift. But, as Zippo has discovered, keeping manufacturing at home is no protection; any item recognized overseas is vulnerable.

Zippo's founder, George Blaisdell, committed to the factory in Bradford when he started the company during the Great Depression. But with fewer Americans lighting up, the family started exporting 20 years ago to countries where smoking was still in style. The distinctive lighters that shut with a click are popular in Brazil, Russia and especially China, where a third of the world's smoking tobacco gets lit. Zippo established distribution networks, advertised its products and created a market overseas. Sales jumped fivefold between 1985 and 1995.

But the very changes that made it easier to send Zippo lighters around the world also created openings for counterfeiters to slip through: easier trade financing, logistics contractors and the Internet. Cheap shipping has turned piracy from a local trade into an international business, while online auction sites such as Ebay and Alibaba provide an easy marketplace for fakes.

Zippo didn't declare war on counterfeiters until 2000, when revenue had plunged 30% from the 1995 level. Knockoffs in Latin America, emerging Europe and Asia were largely to blame. Booth's first reaction was to go after every seller in every market. After all, counterfeiters could not have invaded the market so effectively without a little help from retailers. A struggling shopkeeper can buy the cheaper fakes--duty-free--and sprinkle them in with the genuine article. "Suddenly a third of the display case has margins seven to nine times the real thing," he says.

But Booth realized he couldn't chase down every offender, nor could he afford to alienate too many sellers. "We were pursuing counterfeits in South America, Europe, Australia and all over the Far East," says Booth. "But we realized that we are too small to wage these battles on every continent. We think we have a billion-dollar brand, but we're not a billion-dollar company."

So Booth decided he was going to "cut off the head of the snake." He concentrated all the company's efforts in tracing the fakes back to a handful of factories in the southern Chinese city of Wenzhou, where 98% of the world's lighters are produced. Booth and General Counsel Duke hired private investigators to stake out suspected counterfeiters and pose as buyers looking to buy bootleg lighters. Once Zippo's private eyes discover a cache, they can call in the Administration for Industry & Commerce (AIC), a civic organization in China that has the power to seize and destroy counterfeits. "They usually have a little ceremony with banners and TV cameras," says Duke. In one, a farmer crushes the booty with his tractor.

Zippo has played this cat-and-mouse game hundreds of times over the last five years, says Duke. Most cases never make it to court because these regulators don't want to pass them to the police. The AIC, for instance, can levy fines, but it can't start criminal proceedings. The more fines AIC collects, the higher its revenues. And those destruction ceremonies with tractors and TV cameras? They also destroy the evidence for any potential criminal case.

One case, against the manager of a factory caught with 97,000 Zippo knockoffs, took three years to get to court. It was the lowly plant manager who fell on his sword. "We think we know who he was working for," Duke says, but as usual there was no paper trail. The manager was sentenced to six months in jail but was put on probation instead.

If the prosecutors are getting a bit more adept, so are the counterfeiters. The copies now hitting the market are especially good. "It's like any other enterprise. The people able to produce the highest quality in the most efficient way are the ones who stay in business," says Duke.

Often there is one company making the cases, another making the internal assembly, another creating the packaging, a fourth putting everything together and yet another company handling the shipping. Zippo's paid investigators watched one suspicious factory for weeks but never saw a single lighter leave the building. The owner, it turns out, had dug a tunnel to a neighboring warehouse and moved the loot out at night.

Duke tried another tack: He filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission against four Chinese producers in July for violating a design trademark the company filed in 2002, covering the rounded corners of the lighter's body and its arched flip-top. Most of the high-end lighters made in China violate this trademark. Unlike the Chinese court cases, this case will be heard in the U.S. If the Chinese manufacturers don't respond, they can be barred forever from exporting to the U.S.

That has the legitimate Chinese manufacturers up in arms. Meantime, the tide of fakes keeps on sloshing around the world.

"We haven't folded the tent," says Chief Executive Booth, hoping for more help from Beijing. "But if this were to continue, I could see our business at half the size it is now."

[Ricky]

Вот, а мне кто то в личку писал что я лох и все производсвто зиппо давно переведено в китай. НЕ БЫВЕТ КИТАЙСКОГО ЗИППО!!!

[нейромантик]

Да, мило выглядит ситуация. Таким макаром Зиппо скоро просто сдохнет.

[antonybanderas]

Если брать, то брать для себя, чтобы вещь радовала глаз и не было желания вернуть деньги и избавиться от вещи.

[гарег]

Если брать, то брать для себя, чтобы вещь радовала глаз и не было желания вернуть деньги и избавиться от вещи.

А еще можно взять в подарок, чтобы вещь радовала глаз кому-нибудь другому

[Bertram]

2 Ricky А скинь ссылочку на каталог зиппо которые можешь достать. У друга как раз скоро ДР.

[moushjak]

Пользуюсь. Нравится. Не надо строить из себя странные позы на ветру :)

[the bends]

У меня есть Зиппо, но пользуюсь имиджевой зажигалкой Мальборо, таких нет ни у кого. Если Зиппо настоящая, то это клево, тем более, если умеешь всякие трюки делать, как на lightertricks.com

[JGenik]

Пользовался зиппо когда курил, вещ хорошая. Если прикуривать беломорКанал от зиппо то это да, дешёвые понты, а так нормально...

[Kserik]

у меня есть пару Зиппо,но я ими не пользуюсь... есть еще одна Зиппо,но она стоит особняком. Во-первых - это подарок,а во-вторых - просто крутая зажигалка. Это,если так можно выразиться, посеребренная "мини" Зиппо с офигительными словами,выграверованными на ней... Короче круть)) Но ей я тоже не пользуюсь))) стоит как сувенир)))

[Reaver]

Когда-то с первой зарплаты (не заработка, а именно с первой постоянной зарплаты) купил себе зиппо с эмалью - изображен Элвис Пресли. Полгода побаловался, потом надоело. Сейчас пользуюсь одноразовыми. Нравятся AMATTI - не напрягают глаз, и работают без перебоев. А отличие одноразовых зажигалок от часов ASAHI за 1$ - зажигалок у меня по всей квартире и карманам можно штук 20 собрать. Часы (даже фуфельные) не покупают десятками, даже если забыли все 20 единиц фуфла дома.

[Sultik]

У меня две зиппо, вообще вещь хорошая. Девушкам нравиться, одну из двух мне на ДР праймари и подарила. Но пользуюсь я крикетом, мне он больше по душе. А вообще лучше бросить курить. И в карманах место появиться! :)

[MihaStar]

Зиппо это прикольно. И красиво и удобно. Одноразовые и на ветру плохо зажигаются, и выглядят фигово, и часто, когда берут прикуривать не отдают. И пока я не видел ни одной одинаковой Зиппы, кроме тех, которые без рисунка.

[гарег]

Зиппо это прикольно. И красиво и удобно. Одноразовые и на ветру плохо зажигаются, и выглядят фигово, и часто, когда берут прикуривать не отдают. И пока я не видел ни одной одинаковой Зиппы, кроме тех, которые без рисунка.

Насчет плохого зажигания на ветру одноразовых зажигалок могу поспорить.
Этой зимой по учебе заносило в одно такое место, где рядом с трассой зиппо упорно гасла, толком не успев зажечься.
Ветер был очень нехилый.
Приходилось брать у однокурсников одноразовые крикеты и, прикрывая рукой, хоть и не без проблем, но прикуривать.
Обидно имея зиппу прикуривать от крикета.

Когда берут прикуривать и не отдают смотри на эту ситуацию так: не тебе не отдали, а ты не забрал.

Насчет одинаковых зажигалок - тут ты прав, зиппы вообще не очень часто встречаются, тем более одинаковые при их громадном ассортименте.

ЗЫ видел тут недавно у товарища живонши тоненькую - очень позитивная штучка, понравилась

[MihaStar]

Если Зиппо заправлена, то в большинстве случаев зажигается на ветру. Другое дело, когда морозы за 20..... При них без крикета никак. А вообще у меня в каждой куртке, портфеле и рюкзаке лежит старый добрый крикет. А то забудешь заправить, заменить кремень и тд.