Indian Cricket Team Owner Plans Cheaper Line Of Jerseys To Compete With Knockoffs

from the market-research dept

We wrote about Indian film star Sharukh Khan not too long ago, when he was involved in a prank/hoax/joke about airport film scanners. However, Amar Balikai alerts us to something else he’s potentially planning that seems pretty smart. Khan, via his production company, owns a cricket team, and there’s huge demand for the jerseys. The official jerseys are apparently quite pricey, leading many to buy cheap knockoffs instead. But rather than freak out about the fakes, Khan apparently wants to create a second line of cheaper jerseys that the team can offer directly, to compete with the knockoff versions. We’ve seen this before, such as with the South African t-shirt company that secretly designed both an official line and its own, cheaper, knockoffs, and was able to better segment the market. In other words, these are both cases of companies recognizing that “piracy” is just a form of free market research. You just need to figure out how to capitalize on what it tells you.

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Comments on “Indian Cricket Team Owner Plans Cheaper Line Of Jerseys To Compete With Knockoffs”

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8 Comments
fogbugzd (profile) says:

ACTA

Supposedly this type of counterfeiting is exactly what ACTA is supposed to combat. This model seems like a much better market-based solution that a bunch of unenforceable treaties.

The problem is that this model also requires companies to act counter to modern corporate-think. For one thing, the companies have to recognized that the market is not a zero-sum game. Current corporate think says that there is a fixed sized market, and every knockoff purchased is a lost sale. The reality is that there are two markets, and the sum of the two markets is much larger than just the high end segment.

It also requires risk taking and competition in the bare-knuckled world of knockoff production. Modern executives will do almost anything to avoid taking risks or getting their hands dirty by operating in a competitive market.

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