Challanges

ayugup · April 8th, 2017, 07:46 PM

How do you guys who work in retail stay in business. Meaning I do school uniform logos and some logos are licensed to me, but somebody in the town copied all our logos, and they are selling at cheaper prices than us and hurting our business.
PLEASE HELP

ayugup · April 9th, 2017, 03:06 AM

The subject i was supposed to put was challenges

Robert Young · April 10th, 2017, 11:53 AM

send them a cease and desist letter from your atty. Business is Business.. not play time. You either sue or hide with your tail between your legs and close shop. sorry.

minimalist · April 10th, 2017, 11:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Young

send them a cease and desist letter from your atty. Business is Business.. not play time. You either sue or hide with your tail between your legs and close shop. sorry.

$300 minimum to draft a C&D letter, easy. OP wouldn't be able to afford the legal cost to fight a "copyright" violation. I had a restraint of trade case against a major manufacturer of material. We're talking downtown Dallas law firm material. Not a single one I spoke with would take it without me throwing a minimum of 10K on a retainer.

OP,

If the designs are licensed by the client to you it's possible the client provided a license to them as well. In your licensing agreement you'll need to look for a clause that establishes you as the sole licensee. It probably won't be there but if it is then the client has actionable recourse against the other place. You generally don't have a case against another shop copying a licensed design of another party.

Did you copyright the designs you created or are they trademarked? If so then you can sue them for violations but be advised this most likely won't be a contingent case and you'll have to front the legal cost. If you win the fees should be paid for by the Defendant. Most likely as soon as the process server delivers the suit the business will close and reopen under a different name.

Robert Young · April 11th, 2017, 08:45 AM

You are correct, as usual, Minimalist. I was hoping a letter might scare the other company... just depends on how aggressive they are.

Any legal win will still result in nothing and I agree with that.

OP,

Maybe you can be more aggressive with your pricing or other value added options? Diversifying into other products and niche markets could also help you?

ayugup · April 11th, 2017, 12:14 PM

Thank you for all the suggestions but
I have dealt with a lawyer before, and majority of Lawyer don't do much in Louisiana
Also, The logo is copyrighted by school and we are the only one who have permission to sell it.
Also the school wants everything same, so i cannot change the type of Quality in shirts
We are selling Dickies Shirts with Monogramming for $14.99, but the other company is selling for $12.99 but different brand and a little different color.

I cannot do anything, because the logo isn't copyrighted by me, but by the school.

The other shop has actually bought my shirts and put on their Facebook.

Also, one time, another school send the police to that store, and they still sold the shirts. Nothing major happened during that time. The only thing happened was the store was closed that day.

Even though School is sending people in my store, people are going to go wherever they want, so i cannot do anything

You see what Im dealing with

Robert Young · April 11th, 2017, 12:35 PM

I do not think this is an unusual problem.... so other forum members.... how have YOU handled this type of issue?

I still think undercut the other company to the point of running them off! (hey will be cheaper than the atty fees probably... and MORE enjoyable. ha)

Diversify and have other Niche markets for your revenue stream.

minimalist · April 11th, 2017, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ayugup

Thank you for all the suggestions but
I have dealt with a lawyer before, and majority of Lawyer don't do much in Louisiana
Also, The logo is copyrighted by school and we are the only one who have permission to sell it.
Also the school wants everything same, so i cannot change the type of Quality in shirts
We are selling Dickies Shirts with Monogramming for $14.99, but the other company is selling for $12.99 but different brand and a little different color.

I cannot do anything, because the logo isn't copyrighted by me, but by the school.

The other shop has actually bought my shirts and put on their Facebook.

Also, one time, another school send the police to that store, and they still sold the shirts. Nothing major happened during that time. The only thing happened was the store was closed that day.

Even though School is sending people in my store, people are going to go wherever they want, so i cannot do anything

You see what Im dealing with

You're assuming the other store does not have an agreement as well.

Police can't enforce civil issues between two parties, they could not do anything in the situation you describe.

The only way you're going to have remedy in this is to set up a method to sell the shirts to the kids/parents at the school. This way the other supplier is cut out temporarily. It will work for a short time until the other supplier screams about preferential treatment. Do you have a contract with the school to provide them logo uniforms as sole source or is it merely a grant of license?

minimalist · April 11th, 2017, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Young

I do not think this is an unusual problem.... so other forum members.... how have YOU handled this type of issue?

I still think undercut the other company to the point of running them off! (hey will be cheaper than the atty fees probably... and MORE enjoyable. ha)

Diversify and have other Niche markets for your revenue stream.

The race to the bottom on pricing is won by no one. If the school deal is their main source of income I'd be up there once a week or so helping them create ideas to market t-shirts/embroidery for school events in which we would provide the product at very reasonable prices.

ayugup · April 11th, 2017, 03:06 PM

The other store doesn't have a agreement, because the school told us.
You are hundred percent right about the fact that the race to the bottom of price is won by no one. The thing i don't like is that the customer i deal with have bad attitudes, and they don't know what they are saying half of the time.
Some of the customers i have, tell the other customers to go there even though they buy from us.
I remember one customer especially buying from us and he just wanted a deal, like buying 2 shirt a little cheaper. We said this is store price, and then he complained saying the other store is giving a deal, why can't you

Also for the school we do some screen printing, but now with online business, they have found it easier just to design the logo in website and order it