In this day and age, do design thieves not know they'll be caught, or are they just trying to make as much money as possible before they get caught?
Amazon Basics has knocked off Peak Design's Everyday Sling, right down to the shape of the tag--and incredibly, they gave their copy the exact same name. This level of brazenness makes me wonder what the hell they're thinking.
Peak Design isn't taking it lying down:
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The conflict, of course, is that Amazon sells Peak's product. What do you do when you're being knocked off by one of your main distributors? As the team at Peak writes:
"Amazon is one of Peak Design's biggest partners. We've been selling Peak Design products on Amazon for years, and we work closely with Amazon to remove counterfeit and copycat products from their marketplace. Hence, we were astonished when we found out Amazon had copied one of our bestselling bags. They call it the "Everyday Sling," which, funny enough, is exactly what we call our product.
"Amazon is a revolutionary service that we use and benefit from heavily. Also, Peak Design is not the first brand to see their products copied by an Amazon in-house brand. If we were really serious people, we might get on our soapbox and pontificate about the pitfalls of capitalism. But we're not really serious people. So we got some googley-eye glasses (thanks Amazon Prime!) and made this video instead.
"It's our goal to make the best things. If we tried to make the cheapest things, we wouldn't be us. Amazon reminded us of that. We appreciate the pep talk, Amazon.
"Know what we really appreciate? Our customers. Thank you for supporting intense, obsessive design that focuses on novel solutions to real problems. Thank you for supporting design practices that account for a product's lifecycle, and it's external impact on people and the planet.
"And if you want to know why Amazon just couldn't resist copying the Peak Design Everyday Sling, check it out for yourself."
Note: At press time, Amazon had changed the name of their knockoff to the Amazon Basics Camera Bag.
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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Amazon Basics Knocks Off Peak Design's Everyday Sling--and Even Gives It the Same Name
The video shows them tracing over the product. The sad thing is that it was even easier. They bought one, sent it to their factory, and gave them instructions on a price to hit (assuming they knocked it off on purpose).