Sham shampoo: China’s market for impersonal care products; A 400ml bottle passing itself off as Procter & Gamble’s Pert shampoo sells for 10 yuan (US$1.60) per bottle while the genuine article sells for US$5.30
May 15, 2013 Leave a comment
Sham shampoo: China’s market for impersonal care products
Staff Reporter
2013-05-15
The market for personal care products is a breeding ground for knockoffs in China, with manufacturers cashing in on the low costs and high returns involved, reports Shanghai’s First Financial Daily.
Rural areas in Henan, Guizhou and Anhui provinces have become the epicenter for cheap imitations of personal care products. Mo Lei (pseudonym), an Anhui-based entrepreneur who primarily trades in counterfeit goods, said that there are knockoff factories everywhere in China and there are also wholesale markets that primarily deal with fakes.
A 400ml bottle passing itself off as Procter & Gamble’s Pert shampoo sells for 10 yuan (US$1.60) per bottle at local retailers, while the genuine article sells for 32.80 yuan (US$5.30) for the same amount.Many consumers in rural areas find buying genuine brands too costly and would rather opt for knockoffs instead, a store owner told the paper.
Ping Jianjun, an industry analyst, said net profits for knockoffs in China may be as high as three to 10 times those of genuine items, with a counterfeit 400ml bottle of P&G’s Head & Shoulders shampoo, costing as little as 0.50 yuan (US$0.08) to produce.
The fake goods that currently flood the country’s market can be divided into three types: illegal imports that enter China through unauthorized channels; knockoffs that come with the same name and design as the authentic products, and clones that are branded with similar names and packaged like the original products, the First Financial Daily said.
Though cheaper, the use of fake personal care products can lead to significant health problems, warns Liang Yanhua, a professor at Southern Medical University’s Department of Dermatology in Guangzhou.
Knockoffs containing excessive levels of heavy metals may cause skin allergies and even neurological disorders such as insomnia and memory loss, Liang added.
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