Laptop Pioneers Apple Find Themselves Copied by Counterfeit Stores

PARIS, August 11, 2011 -

Copycat Stores in Kumming, China Show That Brand is Everything, say dooyoo.co.uk

It has been a battle of the brands. Except in this case the brand was the same each side; or at least mimetically. In recent news from prpro.co.uk, it has been announced that Chinese officials in Kunming have ordered the closure of two fake Apple shops.  

Although the shops were in fact selling genuine, bona fide Apple products, they weren’t carrying the official Apple logo and therefore did not qualify as a genuine store.

The argument here, according to dooyoo.co.uk, the European review and price comparison site, is that an attempt to re-brand a genuine brand - however realistic - cannot ever carry, in any circumstance, a business licence. This is an obvious fact that would not escape Apple customers who had bought their laptops thinking they were making a transaction from one of the brand’s famous stores.

‘Apple is Apple because it has created and built its entire brand and empire. Customers are both comforted and reassured by the brand, in particular when they purchase their Apple Mac laptops, a core representative of the Apple products. Whether these products are genuine or not, that these are not bought from a real Apple store is the cold, technical truth of the matter.‘

After an investigation, officials found five self-branded stores posturing as the real thing and without any authorisation. Two have now been shut down.

The inspections started after a blog post by an American, who lived in the city, attracted the attention of officials. The deception went so far as the employees themselves were under the impression they were working for a legitimate Apple Store.

Dooyoo.co.uk is the social shopping website with a strong community that provides  information regarding the online shopping experience, including reviews on products and shops, product details, prices and shop details to all online users. dooyoo’s dynamic Internet platform helps consumers make informed purchasing decisions as a result of dooyoo members’ collaborative commitment and involvement. The mixture of services - advice, bargain hunting and professional reviews - offers maximum comfort to everyone shopping online. The exchange of shopping tips and product reviews is the platform’s special value. The dooyoo community’s collective intelligence creates up-to-date independent product evaluations of more than 1.5 million products.

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