In the run up to Christmas there is never a better (or worse) time to get lumbered with a ‘fake' item, produced in some underground lab in the Far East.

Andy Churley, the market director at brand protection specialists NetNames has informed us this morning that there are already dodgy iPad Mini's available, if you look in the wrong places.

He said “Apple has today announced that it will be launching a mini iPad in the run up to Christmas. At a time when the whole market seems to be going tablet crazy, with the Google Nexus currently leading the “must have” gadget charts, consumers need to remain savvy as they turn to online channels to secure the best deals on the latest products.

As we witnessed with the launch of the iPhone 5, counterfeit products are available online at discounted prices within hours of new products being announced. To make secure purchases, customers need to look for the green address bar indicating fully authenticated and highly secure retail websites and use well established comparison sites such as Kelkoo to see where the legitimate item is available online for the cheapest price.

Brand owners also need to take responsibility for protecting customers. Today, it is imperative that businesses are using the online power channels to engage customers and drive the sales life-cycle. However, at a time when one in six products sold are counterfeits, brand owners need to remember that domain names are a valuable online asset so branding and domain names need to go hand in hand. For example, the domain name ipadmini.com has been owned by a company called Ballade since 2005 and provides “geo targeted ads based on the IP address of user”. While searching for miniipad.com brings up a 404 web-page error. Issues like this are a serious problem for brand owners who are looking at pushing their product envelope. As a result, businesses need to take control of domain names and ensure that as soon as a concept, brand, company or slogan is thought of, the appropriate domain names are secured in order to stay one step ahead in the online world.”

Kitguru says: If you are buying an iPad Mini, make sure you buy from a good source!

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