Knockoff Nirvana: The Real Lesson of China's Fake Apple Stores

Counterfeit stores in China? Say it aint so! The reports of fake Chinese Apple stores have gone viral.

As if brand piracy and counterfeiting is news. You can get fake Gucci bags on any American city street corner. And for decades the Chinese have been internationally famous for ripping off western IP. So why the excitement?

The answer may be one part indignation and several parts titillation. The indignation comes from resentment of an economy that appears to be doing quite well, thanks, when much of the west is mired in economic malaise and serial debt crises. That is not going to go away. The titillation is an endorsement of the Apple brand's iconic position in the emotional shopper's value hierarchy. From hip Brooklyn-based programmers to Vanagon-driving suburban matrons, the iPhone or iPad is the coveted product du jour. So the evidence that 'a billion Chinese cant be wrong, ' as the saying used to go, reaffirms the owners choice and self-worth. There is also a touch of snobbery as in, I've got the real thing from the real source and all you can afford is a lousy knockoff.

But not to worry, the Chinese are not losing any sleep over this. Brand piracy is considered by many in China to be payback for centuries of abuse. The IP theft industry employs thousands. Though the stories may force some stores to close, they will quickly be replaced. And tonight you can casually place your iPhone on a restaurant table for all to see, secure in the knowledge that everyone who doesnt have one, wants one. JL

Abe Sauer reports in Brand Channel:

In what will come as a shock to nobody who has ever visited China, reports of fake Apple stores are flooding the web, sparked by a lone American blogger. The Associated Press, under the headline "Entire Apple stores being faked in China," reports that China had "reached a new piracy milestone — fake Apple stores."

Really? A milestone? This is the same country in which an entire mall dedicated to fake brand name stores opened in 2009. Knock-off Apple stores in China, meanwhile, have been reported as far back as 2007. More important than the fakeness of the Apple stores? Nobody there cares.
The New York Times carries a report on the rise of fake Apple stores worldwide, noting similar shops in places as far flung as Quito, Ecuador.

The news bump originates with a blog post this week by "BirdAbroad," the nom de plume of a newlywed American expat living in China with her husband.

Since the explosion of the story, the blogger (who says she received some "half million" hits in 48 hours on her first post) has begun asking readers to send in their own pictures of fake Apple stores. She kicks off the exercise with a photo of a fake Apple store in Hanoi, Vietnam, taken by "RP" (who appears to be her husband).

Apple currently operates four stores in China, two each in Shanghai and Beijing, as well as an online store launched for the China market in 2010.

As noted, China is a place where malls full of knock-off retail brands have set up shop, so it's not a surprise that as far back as 2007, Wired had dropped mention of the "coming soon" banner of a fake Apple store in China (that may have been the real store?) But oe that was certainly not real was the Apple Mac Store spotted in Tokyo in 2005.

One striking part of the story, as many have noted, is that the employees there seem to genuinely believe they are working for Apple, and not an impostor. But maybe the most telling part of this story for American and foreign brands is one small detail.

When confronted with the reality that he worked for a fake brand and not the real Apple, the fake store's employee didn't even care, telling the Wall Street Journal, "It doesn't make much of a difference to us whether we're authorized or not. I just care that what I sell every day are authentic Apple products, and that our customers don't come back to me to complain about the quality of the products." (And, presumably, as long as he gets paid.)

Chinese consumers may not care if the store is real, but they genuinely care that the branded products are genuine. Witness the current uproar over the DaVinci furniture brand in China, which is learning about the perils of faking it as "Made in Italy" when its faux luxury label goods are really "Made in China."

One other noteworthy item: Following this story, a Chinese resident of Kunming posted a video of his visit to one of Kunming's three fake Apple stores. From the visit one can see the store sits adjacent to a Sony store. Has anyone checked to see if that's real?

Image - PC World