Company that supplies coffee

Tchibo was founded in Germany and had sales of $4.6 billion two years ago. This Hamburg company, which originally ran the coffee business, has risen rapidly in the German retail industry in recent years, becoming the largest consignment company in Germany and the fifth largest coffee seller in the world.

Can you imagine it? In addition to being Germany's largest coffee distributor, Tchibo is also one of the top ten clothing retail stores in the country. Each year, Tchibo sells 1,800 items under its own TCM brand, which can even account for 75% of sales in some stores, and sales of each product can even reach 100,000 units. Now, Tchibo chain stores have opened all over the world. In addition to tangible products, selling services is another highlight of Tchibo: In 2004, the company and the European mobile operator O2 jointly sold mobile phones settled at a single rate. As a result, 435,000 people sold mobile phones at the first The contract was signed within one year.

Tchibo is still a nightmare for many small and medium-sized enterprises. Do you know that Tchibo "takes small to win big"? It relies on its dotted coffee shops to sell a wide range of daily consumer goods series, from fashion to small appliances. The sales strategy is to launch a new, seasonal series every week, and each series is usually only available in small stores. It sits on the shelf for a week or two before being removed. The characteristic of these series is that their prices are comparable to those of famous low-end discount stores such as Aldi and Lidl, while their designs are on par with similar high-end products, creating the myth of TCM.

The success of Tchibo has made many German businesses and manufacturers who are struggling to operate jealous. In their eyes, the secret of TCM's success is "stealing, plagiarism and imitation" in product design. "Times" mentioned the following examples:

A small German manufacturer spent the equivalent of a year's work of five designers to design a foldable Walkman headset, but they Shortly after its product was launched, Tchibo launched a pair of headphones that folded in the same way. The small manufacturer filed an emergency lawsuit in court to prevent Tchibo from further selling this headset.

There is another manufacturer who has no choice but to sigh. In 2004, the company launched a tablecloth with a pattern of cherubs holding hearts, priced at 40 euros; soon after, Tchibo also sold tablecloths with almost the same pattern, priced at less than 10 euros. Although the manufacturer used legal channels to stop Tchibo from selling this tablecloth, before Christmas the following year, Tchibo launched another tablecloth with a similar pattern. The only difference was that this time the little angel was holding a small star. . Tchibo, who was taken to court again, argued that the cherub pattern is a common pattern that anyone can use and is not someone's patent.

Faced with numerous accusations of infringement, Tchibo stated: TCM brand products are exclusively designed by Tchibo; of course, Tchibo people have to participate in various exhibitions to examine new trends in fashion and fashion, but they have never deliberately To plagiarize or steal a design, many times Tchibo's designers don't know that a design has been patented by a small company; if such a similar design occurs, Tchibo will recognize the other party's intellectual property as long as there is a legal basis.