From questioning to apologizing

The issue of “YPL pants promoted by Xinxuan live studio are not officially authorized” was finally ended with an apology from the YPL brand. On the evening of April 23, YPL released the latest statement on its official microblog, saying that “the trademark licensing dispute involved in the case of ‘YPL pants promoted in Xinxuan live studio are not officially authorized’ has been properly resolved, and YPL brand apologized for the impact on relevant companies, netizens and Mr. Xin Youzhi”.

The statement is the fourth statement issued by YPL in just two days since April 22, and the content of the statement has changed from questioning that “YPL products sold in Simba team live studio are fake” to “internal brand trademark licensing dispute” and apologized to Simba.

On the afternoon of April 22, YPL issued a statement on the official microblog for the first time, pointing out that the YPL products sold in the Simba team live studio are not officially authorized genuine products; In the early morning of April 23, YPL again issued a statement saying that the ownership of YPL trademark of fake products is YPL company, and provided relevant trademark registration certificate and trademark transfer certificate pictures.

During this period, Simba team has issued several statements in response to YPL authorization, first indicating that it will further verify the authorization link and relevant written materials provided by the brand holder “Harbin aoshengyuan Trading Co., Ltd.” to Xinxuan company; Subsequently, the verification results were released, saying that “the event was caused by the dispute between the trademark holder before and after the transfer of the trademark, which is not a fake”.

However, YPL brand did not recognize the results published by Simba team. At noon on April 23, YPL brand issued a statement for the third time, saying that the company had never had any business cooperation with Harbin aoshengyuan Trading Co., Ltd. proposed by Xin Xuan, and there was no trademark authorization, pointing out that Xin Xuan took out the power of attorney with the seal of the company, which was forged.

Until the evening of April 23, the fourth statement of YPL brand admitted that the matter involved trademark authorization, and Simba team was questioned for many days, and the sale of fake goods was reversed.

Who is YPL

YPL’s official website shows that YPL is a functional sports brand from Australia. Its main products include slimming pants, breast enhancement vest, sunscreen jacket, sports bag cap, etc. among them, pants items such as “dog Yoga Pants”, “peach hip pants” and “Ai pants” are more popular.

In fact, YPL brand has cooperated with many head anchors and stars. The investment promotion page of YPL’s official website shows that super anchor Weiya and Li Jiaqi have all put YPL products on the shelf in the live studio, and cooperated with stars such as Hu Ge, Zhu Yilong, Wang Jiaer, Mao Xiaotong, Zhao Ruth, twins, Zhang Junning, fan weiqi, Liu Tao, Jing Tian and Luo Yonghao.

It is understood that what triggered the “war of words” between Simba and YPL this time is a “YPL sunscreen cool pants” from the live broadcasting room of “egg” (the anchor of Simba team). Relevant data show that the price of the live broadcasting room of this product is 63 yuan, the number of sold products is more than 100000, and the sales amount is more than 6 million yuan.

However, when the reporter of Beijing business daily asked the customer service of YPL overseas flagship store (the affiliated company is “YPL Australia PtyLtd”) whether the store sold sunscreen and cool pants in the Simba team live studio, the customer service of the store said, “this product is not YPL product”.

It is worth mentioning that although the brand party YPL changed its language and apologized for the trademark dispute, it did not explain the specific content of the trademark licensing dispute. How to define the products sold by Simba team that consumers are concerned about? “So what consumers buy is genuine or OEM?” Some netizens questioned.

With regard to the specific content of the trademark licensing dispute involved in YPL and how to define the above products, the relevant person in charge of Simba team replied to the reporter of Beijing business daily, “the above events are caused by the internal contradictions of the brand party. It is suggested that the statement of the microblog of the brand party should prevail for relevant product problems. At the same time, the above customer service reflection needs to be verified. In addition, the dispute of YPL trademark licensing has been explained by Simba team in the statement”.

According to the statement provided by the person in charge of the team, the trademark licensing dispute involved in YPL is mainly “after the original trademark holder Australian Health Industry Co., Ltd. applied for the transfer of the trademark to YPL Australia Co., Ltd., there has been a dispute between the two sides on authorizing a third party to use the trademark before and after the transfer, so the trademark transferee said that the products promoted in the live studio ‘are not products under YPL brand’.”.

For the reasons for the above-mentioned YPL re export and the specific contents of the trademark licensing dispute, the reporter of Beijing Business Daily also interviewed the YPL brand side, but as of press time, no reply has been received.

Brand authorized pot?

Judging from the latest responses from both sides, the storm of Simba’s “fake sales” may be due to brand authorization. “OEM” is nothing new at present. There are many brands that rely on “trademark authorization” to do almost “cost-free and profit-making” business. Some businesses said that they only need to pay a brand use fee of tens of thousands of yuan every year, and then pay for the use of hanging tags according to the sales volume, and the other licensors basically don’t bother. In some industry segments, the royalties of brands can even be as low as less than 10000 yuan.

Antarctica has achieved the utmost in this “trademark licensing” business with a gross profit of more than 90%. In 2020 alone, the total revenue of the main brand licensing and comprehensive service business of Antarctic e-commerce was 1.327 billion yuan, accounting for about 1 / 3 of the company’s total revenue in that year.

YPL, which has fallen into brand dispute, is also facing great pressure. At present, many consumers begin to question the product quality of YPL brand. On the social platform, a netizen roast said, “I bought one from Haitao, and a big hole was directly broken in the crotch during squatting. I don’t know if I can burn fat, but I died on the spot.”. Similar comments are not uncommon on social platforms, and some consumers say that the goods bought in Weiya live studio will break holes once they come back and wear them.

In the view of Shen Meng, director of Xiangsong capital, YPL questioned that there was an element of topic marketing behind Simba’s team selling fake goods to the final apology. For YPL without brand attraction and influence, topic marketing through alternative means can improve its sales performance and consumer awareness.

At present, online live selling has become one of the important channels for yoga clothing brands to open the market and improve sales. Take lululemon, the head brand of yoga clothes, as an example, which started in April 2020