Keith Lehmann, Senior Vice President of the Consumer Electronics Sector for Kenwo
Keith Lehmann, Senior Vice President of the Consumer Electronics Sector for Kenwood USA, said “Our industry is ever-changing, and an important part of this change is the degree by which the Internet affects our business. According to The NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service, the mobile electronics specialty channel kept its share of the business, including portable navigation devices, relatively flat from 2007 to 2009, while the e-commerce channel gained over 6 percentage points of dollar share. We believe the reason for this share growth is the convenience of the Internet and the trust demonstrated by more consumers who would purchase products online. We also believe that this trend can breed chaos and confusion unless firm merchandising and selling guidelines are implemented and enforced by the brand. This new program will be welcome relief to our authorized retailer network that has been challenged by the online presence of Kenwood products being sold by unauthorized agents and at ridiculously low prices.”
The program requires that all Kenwood dealers wishing to sell Kenwood products online must have an Authorized Internet Retailer agreement on file which is separate from the Master Authorized Retailer agreement and specifically addresses the different merchandising and selling practices that are common with online sales. Kenwood’
To help in these matters Kenwood has retained the services of Net Enforcers, an intellectual property enforcement and brand protection agency with a proven ability to scrub the Internet, find offending websites and report all copyright, trademark and authorized distribution violations to Kenwood.
“Kenwood knows that putting agreements and policies into place means nothing without enforcement,”
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
