UPDATE: WOOLIES AND SHANNON HAVE HAD A MEETING – THE LATEST HERE…

Stories of large companies stealing ideas from smaller designers are plentiful, but there’s something about the story of Shannon McLaughlin that has struck a nerve with many South Africans.

Yesterday, on her blog, Shannon detailed at length what it was like to watch Woolworths steal her baby carrier design, in a post titled “Dear Woolworths, you have some explaining to do.”

They really do, but before we get to that, let’s start with Shannon’s intro:

It’s 16 December 2018 and I’ve just found out that Woolworths has shamelessly copied the complete design and concept of the baby carrier that I have put my heart and soul into for the last 4 years of my life.

At first glance, it looks like they’ve just used my product name ‘Stage 1’ and ‘Stage 2’ baby carrier. On closer inspection, I realize that they’re using the exact same colours, grey and navy to my baby carrier. Upon further investigation, it appears that they have designated the terms ‘Stage 1 carrier’ and ‘Stage 2 carrier’ as Google Adword keywords. So when you search the term ‘Stage 1 carrier’ or ‘Stage 2 carrier’ – the exact names which are unique to my little business – Ubuntu Baba baby carriers and in which my business has a reputation in – Woolworths adverts come up above my organic search results.

I’m so confused. Why would a big corporate go to such effort to try and copy my product and leverage off my marketing? This feels wrong on so many levels.

They are selling the carriers for 1/3 of the price that I sell mine – because of course they just have it made in China, while we manufacture ours locally in our little factory in Retreat.

Now the financial strain that this brings is obvious, but when you’ve been working on something for four years, the attachment is more than just rands and cents.

Much more:

I can’t sleep, the anxiety of this situation is killing me. What do I do? I’m all for Woolworths selling affordable, ergonomic baby carriers, and I’m glad my little business has ‘inspired’ them, but there is a big difference in taking inspiration and blatantly expropriating another’s product – the way they have gone about this is nothing less than wrong.

I don’t know what the next step is but I feel an instinctive urge to get my hands on one of these carriers, so off I go to Woolworths to go and check it out.

Not only have they copied my ‘Stage 1’ and ‘Stage 2’ names, used my colours, designated Google Ad keywords to divert potential customers, Woolworths has also shamelessly copied my design and pattern.

Shannon then does a side by side comparison to illustrate her point:

OK, now we enter the really dark underbelly of this story.

One of Shannon’s employees suggested they go back and check their online orders receipts, and look what cropped up:

Yip, an Ubuntu Baba Stage 2 carrier was purchased and delivered to Woolworths Head Office in June 2017. Oh, it gets worse:

…the Ubuntu Baba Stage 2 carrier they purchased was delivered directly to the Woolworths Sourcing Administrator herself (thanks for the info, LinkedIn) at the Woolworths Financial Services Building in Observatory.

Surely there is nothing suspicious in someone from Woolworths Head Office purchasing one of my carriers? Alas, this is not the case. In September 2017, the Woolworths Product Developer purchased our Stage 1 carrier, which subsequently was delivered to Woolworths Head Office in Longmarket street.

By this stage, the gun is more than smoking, and over on Facebook there is plenty of buzz. This caught the attention of Woolworths, who offered this response to Shannon’s post on the Ubuntu Baba page:

If you enjoy seeing corporates being torn apart on social media, I suggest you stop by that page.

Also, for those with a sense of deja vu about this story, you might recall two recent incidents where Woolies was accused of exactly this.

You can read about what has been dubbed the “hummingbird story” here, and then there was their battle with Frankie’s.

Back to Shannon’s post for her heartfelt ending:

For a company whose values include “helping local enterprises to grow, and contributing to a prosperous, secure future for our country”, Woolworths – I’d say you have some explaining to do. I understand that mistakes happen within a big company, and maybe you have some sort of explanation for how this all happened, if so I’d love to hear it.

As a South African manufacturer, we’d be happy to consider working together with Woolworths and ‘contribute to a prosperous, secure future for our country’ by manufacturing a local baby carrier option on your behalf.

I’d personally LOVE to see an ergonomic and safe baby carrier on the Woolies shelves, because I know how much of a difference babywearing can make, especially during those first few very tough months of bringing a baby into the world. That is, of course, why Ubuntu Baba exists.

So here’s my reference number, again: 20181224-380204207. Let me know when you’ve got some feedback for me.

If Woolies knows what’s good for their brand, they would be well advised to get on that ASAP.

We’ve only pulled excerpts from Shannon’s blog post, which you can read in full here. Due to increased traffic on her site, you may have to hit refresh a few times before it loads.

We’ll keep you posted on how this one plays out and Shannon, more power to you!

UPDATE: Shannon spoke with Radio 702 this morning. Here’s the interview:

[source:shannonmarymac]