How to Avoid Competitor Plagiarism

The international trade environment is not what it used to be. "Made in China" urgently needs to be transformed. How can foreign trade companies create their own development strategies? Global Sources, together with its "CEConline", continues to create a series of "Outsmart the Future" export forums, providing an excellent exchange and learning platform for foreign trade enterprises. Mr. Pan Wenbin, deputy general manager of Zhongshan Lidan Electric Co., Ltd., shared his overseas market development experience at the forum Zhongshan Station.

Pan Wenbin: Good afternoon everyone! I am honored to welcome the invitation of the resource. I am from Zhongshan Lidan Electric Co., Ltd. Our company produces some audio and electrical products. We have been exporting foreign trade for nearly 20 years. At present, our main customers are also from In Europe and the United States, our company has carried out major resource integration in the past two years, and now the market has stabilized. At present, our customer base is also a large buyer in Europe and the United States, such as Wal-Mart, eBay, and Jizhidao. Our annual turnover is more than 300 million yuan.

Market positioning determines product positioning

Each company will have its own unique marketing behavior or corporate decision-making. For us, because electronic products are very competitive in the Pearl River Delta, you go with your peers Where is your advantage over you, whether it is price, research and development, quality system or delivery time, your company can provide more added value to customers? For us, we are precision customer marketing, that is, I know who my customer is, and I know what kind of sales behavior he will probably have. Based on this, we will formulate the entire strategy, including the large platform we choose Global Sources, as well as our research and development. What we show to customers is our core competitiveness. What Wal-Mart needs is the overall image, that is, the company has strong production capacity, strong quality research and development, and strong quality control. I told Wal-Mart that I am like this. Precise customer marketing is a marketing strategy based on customer needs, your exhibition, B2B and other aspects of the company's image.

In many cases, for the positioning of the company's products, in fact, the positioning of the market will lead to the positioning of the product. The company's entire product research and development, research and development is not a big business, but the research and development is based on According to the needs of customers, for example, Wal-Mart sells cheap and high-quality products. We will look for some references. Even when we have a meeting with Wal-Mart, our engineers are accurate to screw or not screw the product. My cost will be saved, and the product must be It is done according to the needs of the market.

Market changes: increased trade barriers and stricter customer demands

I think the changes in the market now come from two things, the first one is government behavior, and the current trade barriers are completely different from five years ago the same. If there are electronics companies here, Europe is now implementing new requirements, which are technical barriers. Then there is environmental protection. If the requirements for exporting from Germany are the most stringent, there used to be five kinds of material control, but now there are ten kinds, including others such as PH, etc. What customers are changing is actually government behavior, and its trade barriers are emerging. At the same time, it also has some social responsibilities, such as BSCI. If the government of this company's purchaser investigates him, it must have BSCI to enter the EU customs. This is some behavior of the government.

Second, I think that the current customers are a rapidly changing industry for consumer electronics. Apple has only been a few years since the iPhone generation. The requirements for product design and differentiated design are completely different concepts from five to ten years ago. Design requires your development speed and development quality at the same time. For example, the major global buyers I have come into contact with basically have such requirements. They must make my products well, and we call them meeting his market requirements. In addition, for the control of product unit price, large buyers have control over product raw materials (supply chain control). For example, Wal-Mart requires him to designate factories for packaging materials, and he will also manage your supply chain and your production process. Give you advice on how to make the cost down. For another type of customer, he may not be a big buyer, and his price/performance ratio for your products is much better than before. He may shop around, and he used to shop around. This is also a relatively big change. There are also requirements for minimum order size.

I feel that current customers also have requirements for payment methods. Those who used to be PT are now doing OA. If you do it or not, you may not be able to do it.

How to protect the company's intellectual property

For intellectual property, you need to apply for your own patent, which is divided into many blocks, including invention patents, technical patents, and appearance patents. If you are doing appearance patents, if you apply for technical patents , others must pay you for using yours, so you need to understand intellectual property law, which is fundamental to the promotion of rights protection and product strategies. If you just look at the appearance, if you think it looks good, it is impossible to apply for a patent and others will not imitate you, so you must have a good mentality.

Then is for the protection and promotion of the company. After the new product comes out, you don't want all customers to promote it. There are screening. For example, which customers are promoted in Europe, I only send emails, and I don't disclose them on the website or sell them at exhibitions. If you want to sell, we can talk in the room, don't talk outside, don't take pictures, etc., and we must protect ourselves. If you really want to display it on the website, for example, if you want to see my product, you must obtain my authorization and password. For example, this password is valid for two days, and it will expire after two days. This is a kind of protection. And then when you promote it to the customer, you have to make it clear to him that this is a new product, I will introduce it to you first, I want you to sign a contract to me, don't take my things and ask the supplier to quote. This is often the case. In many cases, our products may have five suppliers in China. He thinks that your price is relatively high, and he takes your product to another supplier for a quotation, and copies it. When we do marketing, we need to analyze it in detail. You have done enough preparatory work in the early stage, and you have considered all aspects of the product. OK, I will sell it to you, and I will give it to you if you sign the contract.

Law is the bottom line for foreigners, morality is not the bottom line, because the cost of breaking the law is very high, and their credit will be affected after breaking the law. Choose a customer to push and tell him that he can't make a quote for others. After one to two years, you will After earning enough profits from the new product, others can copy it. Maybe my third and fourth generation have already come out, only the plagiarism has not been surpassed.