This is just the tip of the iceberg. As consumers and dealers you can do something about it by reporting any fakes you find when you find them on Ebay and elsewhere.
Alibaba relies heavily on the advertising companies marketing counterfeits. They use name brands to lure people in. Most of the companies on Alibaba are not actually manufacturers, they are trade agents who pass themselves off as manufacturers.
Outright counterfeiting, i.e. brand name fakes, design theft, and image theft i.e. Fredator instead of Predator, is rampant here. The Chinese consumers are being hurt by it more than the US consumers and manufacturers. Over here retailers regularly sell fakes and advertise them as "made in the USA".
I predict that there will be a great demand coming here for authentic US made billiard products. I already see it beginning.
A decade ago I brokered two containers of chalk destined for Taiwan. That's 1100 gross of chalk or 1.5 million pieces of Tweeten chalk. Why?
Because the Taiwanese were inundated with fake Masters chalk. At the time I called Skip at Tweeten and asked about buying the chalk for Taiwan and he replied negatively and told me they already have a dealer in Taiwan. I said how much does he buy? Skip said 1000 gross. I said do you know how much he sells?
Because shortly before that conversation I had been standing in a warehouse filled to the rafters with fake Masters and Triangle chalk. At the end we got the chalk directly from Tweeten and the seller did well with them as he was the only one who could prove he had authentic USA made chalk.
The thing that will keep most of these goods out of the US market is the language barrier. It's very difficult to communicate properly with the Chinese. Even the ones who speak English do it very badly if their English experience only comes from school. And that how most of the staff is who work for these little billiard companies.
The best English speakers are generally Taiwanese and they know better than to peddle fake brands into the Western countries - for the most part - some dabble in it though through Ebay Hong Kong.
A lot of the Chinese trade agents don't even have a clue that the goods they are selling are fake. They handle so many brands they don't know who is the "real" source and who isn't. And for that matter anyone can register a brand name here even if it's not "theirs" and it takes years for it to be accepted. This is the major reason I chose "J.Flowers." It's protected in China. No one is allowed to use it or anything similar without getting sued in China by a Chinese company. The Chinese are not afraid of getting sued by Western and foreign companies but they do not want to be sued by Chinese companies who understand the law and more importantly who understand Guangxie or "connections" and how to use them.
Here you get to see all forms of treachery in business. It's not as raw as say in Nigeria where you produce a movie and it's being copied and sold on the same street as the production company who made the movie. But it's not far off either as everything is considered fair game to be copied.
Anyway, these have all been around for years, you won't see them on Ebay soon.
But for those of you reading this who are thinking about importing a container of fakes. US Customs can and will raid your business and confiscate EVERYTHING if you are charged with counterfeiting. All it takes is for the brand owner of a registered trademark to identify you to customs and your business will be raided, you will be arrested, your goods destroyed. Hopefully. Have a nice day.
