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Rapha not happy with Torm

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  • January 25, 2011 at 9:48 am #13040
    11speedaddict

    Has anyone else been in touch with Torm clothing ? i noticed their website showing”o ut of stock” on all items so i did some snooping. I believe Rapha are squeezing them legally so to speak.
    i think this is disgraceful. However you look at it Torm is less than half the price for very similiar quality jerseys. I know some rapha fans dont agree with Torm but thats only because feel foolish spending so much more on identical jerseys. I have owned both brands and i wouldnt buy rapha again over torm BUT now I certainly will not buy rapha if this is how they act to competitors.
    are they trademarking the stripe across the arm / front.
    Its effectively bullying and more importantly its stopping people like me buying reasonably priced jerseys. What are Rapha saying ” you pay our prices or take a hike” outrageous.
    I wouldnt mind but by nature Rapha is retro through and through. their designs hark back to previous decades designs.
    Anyone else feel the same way ? any Torm owners out there feel Rapha are dictating prices here ?

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Viewing 15 replies - 61 through 75 (of 121 total)
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  • January 30, 2011 at 9:18 pm #640187
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    Tony Farrelly

    Maybe they haven’t got
    Maybe they haven’t got anything except arm warmers because they’ve sold everything else?

    January 30, 2011 at 8:57 pm #640185
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    Fringe

    howabout phoning Torm to see
    howabout phoning Torm to see what the beef is eh?

    January 30, 2011 at 8:37 pm #640183
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    Tony Farrelly

    No worries Ian, didn’t take
    No worries Ian, didn’t take it that way – fair questions I reckon.

    January 30, 2011 at 7:58 pm #640181
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    11speedaddict

    Sorry Tony- wasnt meant to be
    Sorry Tony- wasnt meant to be having a go at you.just wanted your exact opinion on the prices of the 2 brands.
    You have been very objective.
    Also wasn’t directing the sportswool comment at you either – its just that if you break it down what is the objection.?
    sportswool- no- other brands use it
    ring pulls – no ditto
    slanted pockets ???
    similiar font graphics – no
    pump sleeve – no
    the band on both arms- maybe….so thats it …petty. torm do 6 jerseys and only one resembles rapha (.the thin stripes across the chest jersys do not look like a rapha any more than shutt)
    sorry to repeat myself but i reckon the only objection is that they are the same quality but less than half price.Rapha wouldnt give a toss if torm were £120 cos few people would choose the newer brand.
    again the armwarmers are a diff matter completely but weirdly you can still buy these.
    they need to get it sorted ASAP. its only bad publicity for Rapha. they are not gonna come out of this smelling of roses

    January 30, 2011 at 5:50 pm #640179
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    Tony Farrelly

    Whoever said Sportswool
    Whoever said Sportswool belonged to Rapha? Not me.

    Well, I wouldn’t be bothered about losing ad revenue one way or another – that doesn’t come up in the case of Rapha or Torm though cos neither of them advertise đŸ™‚

    If I was being that calculating it would be more in my interest to come down on Torm’s side card – Rapha don’t do adverts – in the hope that the new guys might. Whereas I’m just trying to be objective – the only Rapha kit I’ve ever bought was in the sale – list is too salty for me.

    Think I did explain how you could produce bike kit and still make a heallthy margin while selling at a very competitive price… same applies to all sorts of other kit too.

    The simplest way is to get hold of some Rapha kit (the most cost effective way if it was Rapha would be to go to the sample sale) then find a factory in the Far East, Vietnam would be a good bet – low cost, low minimum runs and if you up the number the cost per unit will really start to drop, send ’em your ‘samples’ and specify your colours. Arrange shipping, build website, put the word out. Bish! Bash! Bosh! No expensive designers or product testing that’ll take a mighty slice out your costs + if you’ve gone for longer runs on fewer garments you can drop them even further. If you’ve got the money up front to do that your unit cost will be so low and your margin so big (that you can afford to sell cheap AND know that you will break even by selling just a small proportion of your stock – the rest is bunce.

    Finding a factory is surprisingly easy to do – a few years ago some work colleagues and I went quite a long way down the road to having a small consignment of Titanium bikes made at a factory in China.

    Now I don’t know if that’s what Torm did, but I suspect that’s what Rapha think they did + because Rapha sell direct they know exactly who’ve they’ve sold what to in the past.

    Reason I’ve got some clue to all this is that over the past few years I’ve done a fair amount of jersey buying for various magazines & websites+ we’re in the middle of the same process at the moment on road.cc for both lycra and merino jerseys – both coming soon and both will be good quality and reasonably priced – and the reason we can do that is that we’re more interested in having lots of people wearing our jerseys than making money – just as well with the unit cost of Italian made merino B-)

    January 30, 2011 at 3:44 pm #640177
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    11speedaddict

    one of those jersey’s came in
    one of those jersey’s came in at the same time as its Rapha equivalent – on first, and even second inspection they were damn near identical. Had it popped out of the Rapha packet no-one in these parts would have batted an eyelid. They were so close we all started laughing.

    so Tony with reference to above quote , in your opinion and forget any advertising revenue you may lose , man to man , straight up , can you explain the differnce in RRP of the 2 brands of the “near identical” jerseys.
    this is my point- i aint a rapha basher ( or wasnt til now)- til torm came along you couldnt really compare but now you can and it makes fools of all of us who have paid over £100 for a clever marketing brand.
    its not the similiarities that have annoyed Rapha its that Rapha cant say ” we are unique and unique costs more”. Torm are saying “stylish sportswool jerseys dont cost any more than lycra”. if you check out their site this is what they sell on. AFFORDABLE sportswool.
    and BTW sportswool doesnt belong to rapha : Sportwoolâ„¢ is a unique fabric engineered by CSIRO from Australia. Being used for sports clothing before Rapha existed.

    January 30, 2011 at 12:47 pm #640175
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    simonmb

    It’s clear to everyone that,
    It’s clear to everyone that, at the very least, Torm’s collection is heavily ‘inspired’ by the success of Rapha. I honestly don’t think Torm’s intention was to deliberately ‘pass off’ their goods as those of Rapha – they are not ‘Rapha knock-offs’. The styling details both product share could have been patented by Rapha, but I’m not sure that they are – and the lack of statements from Rapha would seem to indicate that indeed they aren’t. Perhaps, in hindsight, Torm will now feel they didn’t need to produce items that so closely resembled those of Rapha. With a bit of creativity they could (and hopefully soon will) produce ‘classic’ styled pieces with a few details that become unique to Torm themselves. After that even Rapha won’t be able to touch them. For now this appears to be a newly established market leader trying pull rank on a younger upstart. I hope they don’t succeed, but I do hope that Torm learn a lesson from it.

    January 30, 2011 at 10:38 am #640173
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    Tony Farrelly

    abudhabiChris wrote:
    So was

    abudhabiChris wrote:

    So was anyone in the Road CC office ever showing any sign of picking up some Torm kit and only later realising it was Rapha, or vice versa ? Has anyone here gone to the Torm website and not realised it wasn’t Rapha ? Because if not, there isn’t a case.

    Chris, one of those jersey’s came in at the same time as its Rapha equivalent – on first, and even second inspection they were damn near identical. Had it popped out of the Rapha packet no-one in these parts would have batted an eyelid. They were so close we all started laughing.

    I’m pretty sure they will have taken legal advice, if things were so cut and dried in Torm’s favour you’d have to ask why there is suddenly seems to be no Torm kit for sale?

    Hopefully whatever problems there are can be resolved and Torm will be back supplying stylish and well priced cycling kit soon.

    January 30, 2011 at 4:10 am #640171
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    KirinChris

    There are no legal grounds –
    There are no legal grounds – it’s a bullying letter.

    The legal ways Rapha can stop them is:
    a) if Torm has infringed a patent or
    b) passed-off / misrepresented itself as actually being Rapha in such a way as may be likely or foreseeable to confuse a consumer

    If Rapha has patented those technical innovations then it is clear cut. If they haven’t patented them then you have to ask yourself were they actually original or were they not patentable. Either way anyone else can use them. If you haven’t patented it then it’s freely available – the law is very clear.

    Has Torm passed itself off in such a way as to confuse a consumer ? The name is not similar, the styling is reminiscent but not exact. They have not used the touches that Rapha uses to identify itself such as the pink lining. And the legal test is a reasonable consumer giving the products due attention, not someone just grabbing something off a shelf.

    So was anyone in the Road CC office ever showing any sign of picking up some Torm kit and only later realising it was Rapha, or vice versa ? Has anyone here gone to the Torm website and not realised it wasn’t Rapha ? Because if not, there isn’t a case.

    This is why the Kia Optima looks like a Mercedes CLS.

    Whichever brand you support or favour, this is just an act of bluff and bullying. And ultimately it will be counter-productive in my view, purely from a marketing point of view.

    January 29, 2011 at 10:53 pm #640169
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    Tony Farrelly

    I’m no legal expert, but I’m
    I’m no legal expert, but I’m pretty sure cease and desist letters cost peanuts

    January 29, 2011 at 10:41 pm #640167
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    TheRotor

    Rapha may be small but they
    Rapha may be small but they will certainly have a big enough legal budget to scare off any wanna be’s.

    Rapha are the new Tesco’s?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/15/tesco-runs-up-huge-legal-bill

    PS
    I got Torm kit for Christmas. Might now be a rare collectors item…

    January 29, 2011 at 9:19 pm #640165
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    Fringe

    erm.
    erm.

    January 29, 2011 at 7:47 pm #640163
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    piedwagtail

    CLX1 wrote:All of my cycling

    CLX1 wrote:
    All of my cycling kit is Rapha… By the way I’m 55, not well off and ride an Enigma before you start with the incorrect stereotypes.

    so you’re decked out head to toe in rapha, you ride an enigma and you’re not well off. ooookaaaaaaaaaay đŸ˜€

    January 29, 2011 at 7:29 pm #640161
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    The _Kaner

    11speedaddict wrote:hopefully

    11speedaddict wrote:
    hopefully they can sort it out between themselves.

    ..so do I. It’d be a pity to see the minnows be eaten by the bigger fish…we all welcome(I’m sure)an alternative to the big boys…especially if it keeps money in our own pockets…

    January 29, 2011 at 5:31 pm #640159
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    11speedaddict

    hopefully they can sort it
    hopefully they can sort it out between themselves.

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