Text丨Liquor Industry Team (ID: jiuyejia360).
Planning丨Cold Spring and Twilight Snow Editor丨Coconut Editor丨Genting.
In the past two years, the life of the cigarette hotel has been really difficult, "no one enters the store", "* decline" and "profit compression" ......The smoke hotel is like a boulder pressing down, but the "troubles" of the smoke hotel don't stop there. Liquor industry experts pay attention to the fact that as the "capillary" of the alcohol industry to penetrate into the consumer market, the tobacco and alcohol terminal has always been a high incidence of disputes in the alcohol market.
Selling two bottles of liquor from 10 years ago became a defendant", "* gift liquor and ** defendant infringement", "Moutai and Wuliangye were sentenced to be punished for hitting the door......".These cases not only occur in individual small cigarette hotels and new cigarette hotels, but even some "old drivers" who have been rooted in the industry for decades have been caught in disputes and stepped on the "pit" again and again.
To this end, the liquor industry has sorted out some common problems in tobacco and alcohol terminals, in order to help tobacco and alcohol terminals avoid some potential risks in their daily operations.
It's hard to prevent. Smoke Hotel is frequently involved in trademark infringement disputes.
Among the many disputes, it is undoubtedly the most common for tobacco and alcohol terminals to be fined for trademark infringement.
As of 5 p.m. on December 12, there were 2,934 judgments related to "tobacco hotels" and "trademark infringement", most of which were disputes arising from tobacco hotels' infringement of the trademark rights of major liquor companies, such as 1,490 judgments related to "Moutai" and "tobacco hotels".The judgments related to "Wuliangye" and "Smoke Hotel" show that there are 1,097 ......Tianyancha statistics show that in recent years, more than 70% of the cases initiated by leading liquor companies are trademark infringement disputes.
Wine industry combing found,At present, the trademark infringement cases involved in tobacco and alcohol terminals mainly occur in the sale of infringing products, ** gift wine pits, unauthorized use of trademarks in store signs, etc., and many times, tobacco hotel operators tend to be careless in some Xi things.
For example, in August last year, it was reported that Yiyan Hotel became a defendant just because it "sold two bottles of liquor from 10 years ago". According to the litigation information, the plaintiff, Shanxi Blue and White Porcelain Liquor Co., Ltd., believes that the defendant (Fuchang Food Store operated by Li Lin) sold liquor that infringed the plaintiff's exclusive right to use the trademark without authorization, and its behavior seriously infringed on the plaintiff's legitimate rights and interests, causing greater economic losses and goodwill losses to the plaintiff. It demanded that the sale of infringing goods be stopped and ordered the defendant to pay 20,000 yuan in compensation. The defendant Li Lin mentioned that he had almost no ability to distinguish whether the relevant trademark was infringing, "When I first received the court's **, I thought it was a fraud." I didn't expect to be a defendant because I sold two bottles of wine. ”
Selling two bottles of "old wine" may be risky, and there are also hidden dangers in **liquor**. This year, a case disclosed by the Liuyang Municipal Court in Hunan Province showed that the owner of a commercial bank in Liuyang was fined 10,000 yuan by the market supervision department for 10 bottles of "Guojiao 1573" as fake wine, and was found by the court to constitute trademark infringement and sentenced him to compensate Luzhou Laojiao shares20,000 yuan.
The court held that because the firm infringed the exclusive right to use the trademark of Luzhou Laojiao, and could not prove that the goods sold were legally obtained by itself or explain the supplier, it was determined that it should be liable for compensation. After taking into account a number of factors, the court decided that the firm should compensate Luzhou Laojiao Co., Ltd. for economic losses and reasonable expenses to stop the infringement totaling 22,000 yuan.
Well known in the industry,**Gift wine resale is a business behavior that many cigarette hotels are engaged in, but this kind of ** way as a purchase channel for merchants, both for merchants and consumers There are huge risks and hidden dangers, which may not only damage the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, but also easily make merchants themselves fall into disputes such as trademark infringement and product quality.
In addition to the product level, if the trademark is used on the door or store sign without the authorization of the brand, it may also face a trademark infringement lawsuit. According to the Xi'an Intermediate People's Court, in 2022, the owners of 8 shops in Yanta District, Xi'an, were successively sued by Moutai and Wuliangye for trademark infringement. The court held that the use of the registered trademarks "Wuliangye" and "Moutai" on the door without permission or authorization was a use of the trademarks for advertising, which was easy to mislead consumers into believing that they were franchised distributors of "Wuliangye" and "Moutai", rather than ordinary commodity distributors, and could not be recognized as fair use of the trademarks, so it infringed the plaintiff's exclusive right to use the registered trademarks, and should be liable in accordance with the law.
Display non-compliance, professional fights, traffic traps...
Smoke hotels also have these operational risks.
In addition, the wine industry visited and found that there are more standardized requirements for the daily operation of tobacco hotels.
Like, there isDue to non-compliance in display, the upstream manufacturer or wholesaler deducts the feeMost of them are fleeing goods and parallel goods.
The non-compliance of the display of liquor is mainly due to the channeling of goods, one is the display of products that do not belong to the local regional market, and the other is the export of some foreign trade products in the famous liquor, which cannot be sold on the shelves according to the regulations. Ma Teng (pseudonym), the person in charge of a tobacco and liquor chain in Chengdu, said.
Zhengzhou liquor merchant Zhang Yang (pseudonym) also revealed to the wine industry, "At present, there are many cigarette hotels in Zhengzhou that have been complained to the Market Supervision and Administration Bureau by local distributors because of ** fleeing goods, and there is a boss I know who was recently fined 13,000 yuan." ”
The wine industry has learned that relatively speaking, imported liquor brands are not as strict as liquor in channel management, but many parallel goods and parallel goods still dare not sell on the surface, and more are distributed through the ** and regular customer channels, but it is not excluded that some novices who have just entered the industry will step on the pit.
The second is:Fees or sue by upstream manufacturers for selling non-compliant products.
Zhang Yang told the wine industry, "I know that there are three categories, one is to open the bottle cap of the red envelope product with cashback, sweep away the red envelope and then make a bottle cap to sell, the second is to use the manufacturer's first-class tasting wine, take it out as a light bottle wine and sell it at a low price, and the third is to prevent the manufacturer from checking the goods and destroying the traceability code." ”
The third is to encounter professional anti-counterfeiters. A number of liquor merchants have reported to the liquor industry that there are not a few disputes over tobacco and alcohol terminal cases related to professional anti-counterfeiting.
According to Ma Teng, professional anti-counterfeiters generally focus on three major aspects: first, counterfeit and shoddy products;The second is the product that has passed the expiration date, which generally appears on low-alcohol wines;The third is that there are no three codes or three codes are incomplete products (factory date, production license, production company);Fourth, some imported wines without Chinese back labels or unqualified back labels.
The fourth is to rashly enter the layout of live broadcast e-commerce, and "pay tuition" because it is not clear about the platform's regulations.
A number of wine merchants confirmed to the wine industry that they have to pay a large comprehensive fee in the early stage to sell wine live on the online platform, which includes platform deposit, blue V certification, and confession fees. The wine industry learned that on the current mainstream live broadcast e-commerce platform, this part of the cost is basically more than 20,000 yuan, which is a large expense for most cigarette hotels operated on a small basis, not to mention the comprehensive costs of equipment, personnel, and traffic involved in the later normalized operation.
Even if they are successfully settled, most cigarette hotels will fall into the embarrassing situation of not buying **no traffic, and it is difficult to return to the cost after buying**. Li Yongqiang, president of the International Institute of Tobacco, Wine and Tea Culture of the Linyi Federation of Industry and Commerce, revealed to the wine industry, "It has become a common phenomenon for tobacco hotels in Linyi to do live broadcasts to sell alcohol, but most of them have no traffic, and single-digit and double-digit ** abound every day." ”
It should be noted that for some cigarette hotels that make development products, if the influencers advertise them in violation of regulations in the delivery of goods, the relevant cigarette hotels will also bear the corresponding joint and several liability.
How to avoid business risks?
As an important distribution and retail channel connecting the channel end and the consumer side, the tobacco and alcohol terminal inevitably has to face a variety of products and personnel. Including porcelain touching and fake payments, etc., are also the headaches of tobacco and alcohol terminals in recent years.
Chen Sheng (pseudonym), product manager of a chain cigarette hotel in Guangzhou, revealed, "Cases of touching porcelain are everywhere, and they generally come to the store to buy **, and then bring the fake wine prepared before to the door to ask for a refund." "In addition, after the popularization of electronic payment, there are also many people who use fake payment methods such as scanning the code without transferring money, or delaying the transfer of bank cards to illegally obtain benefits when buying alcohol.
How to avoid these many risks?
In the case of trademark infringement disputes, although the second paragraph of Article 64 of the Trademark Law provides:"If the sale of goods that you do not know is infringing the exclusive right to use a registered trademark, you shall not be liable for compensation if you can prove that the goods were legally obtained by yourself and explain the supplier. ”However, the liquor industry is concerned that there are still many cigarette hotels on the Internet of the judgment documents, but after providing the purchase bills, they finally lost the lawsuit because they failed to prove that the supply channel has the right to do soFailure to fulfill due inspection obligations for purchase channels.
Zhejiang distributor Lin Yufeng (pseudonym) revealed, "Now the counterfeiting technology is too high, not to mention the new cigarette hotel, even people who have been in the alcohol business for decades are difficult to see." ”
When I was trained by an institution specializing in the identification of famous and old wines, I mentioned that some counterfeiting technologies have already reached the point where they are fake, and they cannot be seen with the naked eye alone, so if there is a problem with the purchase channel of the tobacco and alcohol terminal itself, this risk is still very great. Lin Yufeng said to the wine industry.
Li Yongqiang believes that to avoid these risks as much as possible, "First, the purchase must be correct, and try to choose to cooperate with manufacturers or designated authorized dealers;."Second, the original documents must be kept when purchasing, and if there is a problem, it can be quickly traced;The third is to resolutely not sell fake and shoddy products;The fourth is to strengthen training and Xi related to daily operations. ”
In the face of some fake payments and porcelain touching, they will be recruited if they are not careful, and it is time-consuming and laborious to protect their rights, and many cigarette hotels often have to admit it by themselves in the end. Guo Rong, the person in charge of Chengdu Huan Drink Import and Export, believes that it is necessary to strengthen process management on a daily basis, do a good job of standardizing operations from the source, and do not give opportunities to take advantage of. In addition, compared with high-alcohol wines, low-alcohol wines generally have shelf life requirements, and it is necessary to regularly clean up the inventory and shelves for such products to achieve timely loading and unloading of shelves.