Tesco this month won a trade-mark action against an affiliate company that attempted to earn sales commissions from a suite of domain names such as tesco-diets.co.uk and tescodvd.co.uk which redirected visitors to the retailer’s website.

UK Law reported that Elogicom became an affiliate of Tesco through a programme run by internet firm TradeDoubler. Elogicom had two websites, Avon4me.co.uk and Avonlady.co.uk, that carried ads for Tesco. Both sites were approved by Tesco for participation in the affiliate deal. So TradeDoubler tracked clicks on the ads and, when purchases resulted, Tesco paid a two per cent commission to Elogicom.

But TradeDoubler’s system allowed an affiliate to register additional domain names and list them under its account. So Elogicom registered numerous domain names, such as tesco2u.com, tesco2you.co.uk, tescojersey.com, tescodvd.co.uk, tescodiet.com, tescodiet.co.uk, tesco-diet.co.uk and other variations.

These names did not take visitors to Elogicom’s websites. Instead, they went directly to Tesco websites - and the traffic was duly credited by TradeDoubler as being generated by Elogicom. Accordingly, Elogicom was paid a cut of the sales.

Tesco was alerted when Elogicom’s monthly commission entitlement jumped from £75.42 in April 2005 to £26,688 in May 2005. The latter sum was not paid out, as Tesco accused Elogicom of trade-mark infringement and passing off and sought a transfer of the domain names.

It went to court when Elogicom refused to comply. Elogicom counterclaimed, seeking payment of the commission.

Philip Sales, sitting as Deputy Judge in the High Court, rejected the counterclaim and granted Tesco a summary judgment and an injunction. “Elogicom was seeking to benefit from use of domain names which incorporated the word ‘Tesco’ by ‘fishing’ for persons browsing the internet who might be searching for goods or services provided by Tesco and, being unsure of the precise address for a Tesco website, might by guesswork enter in the address bars on their computers names closely associated with Tesco in the hope that those addresses would take them to the Tesco website they were searching for,” he reasoned.

Although Elogicom had not used its ‘Tesco’ domains to direct consumers to websites competing with Tesco, and was not using them to sell goods or services of its own, it was rule to have infringed upon Tesco’s trade marks. “In my view, Elogicom took unfair advantage of the Tesco brand, reflected in its trade marks,” said the Judge.

BRC URGES RFID USE

Retailers are being urged to embrace RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), to help gain a competitive advantage.

Practical RFID in Retail - a joint British Retail Consortium/DTI half-day event, hosted more than 80 delegates from the retail sector. Retail speakers provided a practical insight into the reality of using RFID in UK retailing.

Delivering the Opening Address, the Rt Hon Alun Michael MP, minister of state for industry and the regions, said: “The retail trade is vital to our economic prosperity. The supply chain is becoming more complex and RFID will help make it easier for companies at all stages of the supply chain to become more efficient by freeing up resources and increasing productivity.”

Organised by retailers for retailers, the event provided an opportunity to assess the business case for RFID. Beyond the hype, RFID, it was said, has huge potential for improving the efficiency of the supply chain. In addition, it can help with improving availability, managing stock levels and gathering accurate data on products.

BRC director general Kevin Hawkins, pictured, urged retailers to consider the potential of RFID. “One of the biggest challenges retailers face today is to ensure that their shelves are kept fully stocked to meet customer needs. Supply chain problems can lead to consumer dissatisfaction and needless waste,” he said. “RFID offers a long-term solution. This is an idea whose time has come and which undoubtedly works.”

Delegates heard from retailers already trialling the technology, and the event provided an insight into RFID on cartons, totes and high-value items.

With both case study presentations and hands-on demonstrations, the event helped retailers looking to implement the technology who need to understand the practical implications and contribution to the business case.

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Producers can can receive SMS messages, from the trees in the plantation direct to their mobile phones or computers, thanks to the latest technology. The system, developed in Israel, will tell the farmer everything the tree needs at a given time, such as the need to irrigate, or if the temperature is too cold or too hot. The SMS messages keep the farmer updated on wind conditions, temperatures, the amount of moisture in the soil and tree development. The new technology provides a continuous report on the state of the trees and has been developed by several Israeli companies, such as PhyTech, Adi-Mot, and Iriwise. This technology is now widely used in avocado plantations in the western Galilee and in deciduous orchards in other parts of the country.

IT ALWAYS PAYS TO CHECK THE LABEL

With supermarkets dishing out punitive fines for incorrect labelling, and product withdrawal and replacement often costing in advance of £50,000, there has never been more need for a cure for what is known in the trade as label blindness. Anglia Business Solutions believes it has created the answer with its mobile LINKFresh LABELCheck product. Tommy Leighton reports.

The most common reason for a failed delivery is mislabelled product and the penalties for often elementary errors have reached such punitive levels that they can literally wipe out the profit potential of supermarket suppliers on wafer-thin margins.

Most major retailers have a fines system in place, although each enforces their policy in their own way. With a three-strikes-and-you-are-out policy also in place at most supermarkets, and the further requirement to collect, remove and replace any offending articles, the warning on labels is that failure to cut out mistakes can seriously damage your business’ health.

Quality control checks, whether they be in the field, at quayside or in the packhouse, have traditionally involved a small team of people working long hours with reams of paper. Human error therefore is hard to avoid. While labels on the face of it may appear to present a relatively straightforward challenge, the increase in the amount of information involved has added a number of degrees of complexity to checking their accuracy. When a quality controller (QC), 10 hours into a shift, looks at the 500th label of the day, it is little surprise that label blindness has kicked in.

LABELCheck, ostensibly to the user a hand-held terminal, aims to remove the paper chain and reduce the human-error risk. It is an industrial-strength, totally secure, mobile application, designed for use in any environment. Each delivery can be checked, at any point in the supply chain, against information held in a central business management system, before the product is allowed to leave the premises.

Richard Jones, development director at Anglia, tells FPJ: “The high quality of data is an absolute necessity and this is a standard real-world application that can remove mistakes that can kill companies. We recognise that most people using this system will be non-IT people, and it is totally transparent and very easy to use. It is a LINKFresh add-on, but it can be used by any company that runs a Microsoft SQL-based back office solution.” G’s Marketing, which has a JD Edwards system, has in fact carried out the initial trials of the concept.

“The problem until now has been that, even when errors are picked up, the time lag between detection and acting on that has often been considerable,” says Jones. “Information picked up in the packhouse and put on paper then has to be entered into an Excel spreadsheet or a back-end system. It can take more than four hours before the alarm bells ring, by which time the goods could be well on their way to the distribution centre. The only way to solve these issues properly is to correct errors immediately, at source.”

The LABELCheck user would pick up a hand-held terminal which, when switched on and in range, will synchronise data from the back-end system through Anglia’s unique Microsoft .NET based Drizzle technology. This checks the required labelling details with the information entered at the ordering stage for verification purposes. There is no need for keyboard skills as the workflow is shown on an easy-to-navigate touchscreen. On zapping the barcode on the box or pallet, the application recognises the products being tested and walks the user through the series of necessary tests, depending on customer, such as checking colour, customer name, sizing and data accuracy, that would previously have been on sheets of paper.

The technology is available in more than 30 languages, which caters for the growing number of nationalities working in the UK fresh produce industry and also allows for the system to be co-ordinated across overseas sites. The multi-lingual facility is easily interchangeable to suit the user profile. And visual aids can also be built-in, with images of a correctly configured label.

“We think we are the first company to put a workflow system of this sophistication onto a hand-held device,” Jones says. “And we believe that a process that would have taken an experienced QC 12-14 minutes on paper will take two to three minutes for a less experienced QC using this application.

“In the event that any of the tests produces a fail result, a virtually immediate SMS text message or email is automatically sent to selected, key personnel.” The QC, packhouse manager or logistics manager can then intervene and take corrective action, before the product moves along the chain and starts to incur costs. “We want to move error-checking as close to the initial source of the product as we can and this can be used on rigs as easily as in the packhouse. The earlier you can use it, the bigger the window left open to you to change things,” says Jones. “If at any stage the test fails, the last thing you want to do is carry out another 20 tests before the flag goes up. You want to stop everything dead in its tracks. It is too late to do that once it’s loaded on the back of a truck.

“Increasingly, companies need not just to know that the process has failed, but exactly why and precisely where it has failed. It is no good just collecting the information, you have to use it to improve your business, in this instance to enhance intelligence about the labelling process.”

Anglia’s managing director David Hurley adds: “This is a business that is constantly searching for ways to drive costs out of its processes. Time-saving, money-saving, error-avoidance and - if that fails - error-correction are the things that make a real difference. If you can speed up QC by a few minutes on each pallet and make it more accurate at the same time, it doesn’t need us to tell you that the cost savings could be enormous.”

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LABELCheck testing can be configured to check against any combination of labels and label attributes, including:

• picked from location/country of origin

• destination customer

• description of product

• label colour

• best before or display until date

• product count

• class

• minimum and maximum weight

• product notes

• packaging

• Red Tractor etc...

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RAG (traffic light) testing can also be carried out via the hand-held devices. The number and types of tests are fully configurable and can be pre-defined depending upon the product and the customer, say ABS. The tests could include:

• chill damage

• disease

• dehydration

• scuffing

• excessive water

• pest damage

• soiling

• uniformity

• product length

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