Nordstrom division retailer show of Birkenstock sandals on the Outlets at Merrick Park, Miami.
Jeff Greenberg | Common Photos Group | Getty Photos
Birkenstock, the enduring sandal maker based in 1774, filed its paperwork for an preliminary public providing on Tuesday, and warned buyers of the dangers posed by counterfeit manufacturers that use social media to advertise their merchandise.
The footwear firm, which was began in Germany and is now primarily based in London, plans to go public on the New York Inventory Change, underneath ticker image “BIRK.”
Birkenstock has lengthy struggled to guard its mental property, as copycats have taken benefit of the model’s recognition and premium costs to attempt to undercut the corporate with cheaper alternate options. In its prospectus, Birkenstock says that among the competitors comes from “non-public label choices” from retailers, however there are additionally “knock-off merchandise” which might be stealing its IP and attempting to persuade individuals on Fb and elsewhere on the net that the objects are genuine.
“Prior to now, third events have established web sites to focus on customers on Fb or different social media platforms with ‘look alike’ web sites meant to trick customers into believing that they had been buying Birkenstock merchandise at a steep low cost,” the submitting mentioned. “Ought to counterfeit merchandise be efficiently bought on e-commerce platforms managed by third events, our manufacturers and fame may very well be broken.”
Birkenstock would not title Amazon anyplace within the 206-page — plus footnotes — submitting, but it surely does say that it has “refrained, and we might sooner or later chorus, from utilizing sure third-party web sites to distribute our merchandise because of the promoting of counterfeit merchandise on such platforms.”
Seven years in the past, Birkenstock publicly give up Amazon within the U.S. because of an eruption of counterfeit and unauthorized gross sales on the positioning. The corporate additionally mentioned on the time that it could now not permit approved Birkenstock retailers to promote on Amazon.
“The Amazon market, which operates as an ‘open market,’ creates an atmosphere the place we expertise unacceptable enterprise practices which we consider jeopardize our model,” then-Birkenstock USA CEO David Kahan wrote in a memo on July 5, 2016, addressed to “our valued Birkenstock companions.”
Kahan, whose title is now President Americas, went on to say that “policing this exercise internally and in partnership with Amazon.com has confirmed inconceivable.”
Previous to its departure from Amazon, legions of Chinese language sellers had been selling Birkenstock’s flagship Arizona sandal for $79.99, or $20 under the retail value, in response to CNBC’s reporting on the time.
Since 2016, in response to the prospectus, Birkenstock has “considerably expanded” its direct-to-consumer efforts in e-commerce within the U.S. For the fiscal yr ending Sept. 30, 2022, that channel represented 38% of income, the corporate mentioned, including that “one in all our methods is to proceed to extend the proportion of our revenues from e-commerce.”
Subsequent to the Amazon conflict, Birkenstock bought a majority stake within the firm to LVMH-backed non-public fairness agency L Catterton in February 2021. After the IPO, L Catterton will proceed to personal a majority of Birkenstock, in response to the submitting.
“We see ourselves because the oldest start-up on earth,” the corporate mentioned within the submitting. “We’re a model backed by a household custom of 1 / 4 of a millennium with the resilience, timeless relevance, and credibility of a multigenerational enterprise.”
Fb mother or father Meta is nicely conscious of the efforts taken by counterfeiters on its platform. In 2021, Fb and luxurious model Gucci filed a joint lawsuit in California, alleging {that a} consumer of Fb’s U.S. websites was utilizing the platform to promote faux Gucci merchandise.
The businesses mentioned in an announcement that over one million “items of content material had been faraway from Fb and Instagram within the first half of 2020, primarily based on 1000’s of studies of counterfeit content material from model homeowners, together with Gucci.”
Within the six months ending March 31, Birkenstock’s income climbed 19% to 644.2 million euros, or $693.2 million. Web revenue over that stretch dropped 45%, largely because of a international alternate loss.
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