subject: Easy Ways To Cut Down Gray Market Sales [print this page] Gray market according to AGMA is the unauthorized sale of fresh authentic branded products and goods craftily diverted from authorized distribution channels or are imported to a region for sale without the approval or knowledge of the manufacturer. Whilst gray market practices have multiple reasons to thrive, such as channel integration and product availability, its root cause is however associated with heavy price differentiation between markets. As per an AGMA research approximately $40 billion products are sold each year in the gray market and the total gray market activities sums up to $5 billion in lost profits annually to manufacturers.
The impacts of gray market activities to the channels include, unstable prices, erosion of margins and price, reduced value of authorization status and co-mingling of gray market with the authorized inventory. Similarly the impact of the same to end users includes consumer dissatisfaction in brand, missing or increased option, increased service incidence rate, exposure to counterfeiting or used product and lack of warranty. Therefore, enterprises and business houses need to come up with ways and means to address gray market concerns. Some of the methods include:
Creating a corporate awareness
Reviewing entries in the organizations distribution channel
Efficient serial number tracking
Whilst the above mentioned ways would yield positive results, it is also useful to invest in an efficient enterprise risk management program. Such programs offer brand protection via SaaS based software that helps to put an end to gray market sales. The software manages the open market on a continuous basis for sell/buy listings of goods and part numbers making use of advanced search agents that can track detailed market information from a wide range of market types, such as:
Franchise and large distribution websites
Independent and gray market websites
Email-based forums that aggregate buy/sell listings
Trade boards
Auction sites
Chat
B2C sites
Blogs
B2B sites
The software also helps in providing data directly via a website to the user in a comprehensive, multi-dimensional market intelligence format. Using these format end users can have customized dashboards; report views and even create user formatted export files. This apart, all essential information can be accessed and used within a perceptive interface. This allows the investigators to manage and create case histories, evaluate evidence and better understand the association between suspect organizations, partners and other related contacts.
Internet technology has been proficient in promoting online trade but it has also promoted fraudulent practices. Therefore, investing in advanced brand protection solutions will help you to cut down on gray marketsales.
