Gray market is problem prone for manufacturers as it has a negative influence on distributor relations along with the manufacturer’s brand equity that undermines the integrity of the distribution channel.

1. Combat Gray Market Sales with Brand Management Solutions
Gray market activities have become increasingly prevalent over the past few years. The most
prevailing wisdom in marketing is to make use of extreme enforcement for deterring gray marketers.
However, the speed and certainty of enforcement might also depend on the violation incidence.
In the modern day competitive market, manufacturers are depending increasingly on their
authorized distributors to conduct value-added functions. To secure the distributor incentives to
conduct these services, the manufacturers generally implement resale restrictions through implicit
agreements or explicit contracts. By circumscribing to whom the distributors might sell or resale, the
restrictions limit the intra brand competition and help to retain distributor margins.
Gray market activities, i.e. the sale of original trademarked items or products through the
distribution channels unapproved by the brand owner/manufacturer, poses a significant threat to the
manufacturer’s that have executed resale restrictions. Owing to the free reign, gray marketers can
set up free-riding concerns amidst the distributors that offer consumer service, make a selective
distribution system more intensive and also harm distributors that have made certain investments in
the distribution channel.
Therefore, gray market is problem prone for manufacturers as it has a negative influence on
distributor relations along with the manufacturer’s brand equity that undermines the integrity of the
distribution channel. Gray market is also endemic all over, though not restricted to, a wide selection
of industries varying from equipment, mobiles, high-tech products, medicines, watches, perfumes
and other types of consumer products.
Service providers specializing in enterprise risk management with their brand management
solutions, that is a SaaS based software can help companies to retrieve loss revenues, brand equity,

2. market share that has been lost owing to the gray market. The solution also tightens the value chain
and monitors the open market for buy/sell product listings and part numbers making use of efficient
search agents that can capture detailed market information from a wide range of market source
types, such as:
● Franchise and large distribution websites
● Independent and gray market web sites
● Email-based forums that aggregate buy/sell listings
● Trade boards
● Auction sites
● Chat
● B2C sites
● Blogs
● B2B sites
Unlike the generic programs, advanced brand management solutions offer the data in real-time to
the consumer directly through a web portal in a complete, multi-dimensional market intelligence
format, from which customized dashboard, user formatted data export files and custom report views
can be set up. All the information is available and used within an intuitive user interface that offers
the investigators with the capacity to develop and monitor case histories, evaluate evidence and
better understand associations between the suspect partners, companies and associated contacts.
Read More About: brand reputation, Anti-Counterfeiting