A competitor is taking down my advertising... Anything I can do?

[Jester5510]

I hit up just about every local business in my town and put up alot of flyers with the respective owners' permissions. I have some on peg boards, some with business card holders, some flyers taped to the inside of their windows, etc. Going back and checking on these, I've noticed quite a few of my taped flyers have mysteriously gone missing. After asking the owners, they say that they nor their employees have taken them down. They just suddenly weren't there anymore.

Needless to say, this is frustrating. Talking to many other local businesses, they all have pretty bad things to say about one of my competitors. Obviously I can't prove anything, but if I WERE able to prove that he was maliciously removing these adverts, is there anything legal I can threaten or even pursue to get him to stop? It's very annoying having to go re-check every flyer I have taped up to see if I have to put another one out. I also don't want him thinking he can bully the new startup.

Business cards and peg boards are gone at alot of locations as well, but I can attribute that to potential customers taking them (hopefully).

 

[bg.graf]

There's really not much you can do about that, its really frustrating though. The only options you really have are turning to other forms of advertising (Social Media, Emails (mailchimp), Podcasts, Word of mouth incentives, etc)

 

[norm1320]

About the only law I can think of that might cover this would be petty vandalism. But even if you could make a convincing case for it, you would not have legal standing to sue. It seems to me that when you put the sign in another store's window, it became the property of that store's owner. As a result it was his/her property that was vandalized (again, assuming someone could even get a case in through the court doors without the judge laughing it back out).

This is not to say that there aren't other options if you really want to pursue this. If you could get a clear video (or similar proof) of your competitor in the act, you might be able to convince a local newspaper/radio station/tv station to run a story on it.

I don't think it would be worth the time you'd spend on it, but it is an option.

 

[Mr.Mike]

It's sad when a competitor thinks they need to cheat like that. You may not be able to stop it (unless you catch him/her red-handed). I'd like to believe a person like that will eventually wash themselves out of the business because they behave badly and are unethical. That usually shows up in other areas of their work as well. A business friend once told me that "the cream always rises to the top". Here's to you being professionally creamy!!

 

[Knightsman]

I dont see why you couldnt do a civil suit for loss of income if you can get proof of him/her doing it.

Remember civil is different than criminal.

Criminally you might not have much to stand on.

But civility, I don't see why any reasonable person wouldn't see this person doing a bad thing.

 

[16k_zx81]

Yup... the only approach here is to catch him/her doing it and confront, or calmly move on to another form of promotion and revisit this at a later date.

At the moment its just going to be a huge suck of your precious time to have to continually check your flier postings and replace. Not worth the hassle.

Focus your energy on another means of advertising and come back to this some other time. Hopefully by then the culprit will be over his/her 'competition' issues, or out of business and gone for good.

I guess the comforting thought is that anyone who has to resort to this sort of sabotage cant be much of a business person. So, not any competition for you in a real sense of the term.

 

[synack2]

Sometimes you Have to Fight Fire with Fire

Just Print up some advertisments for computer repair for you competitor, and help him out.

Competitors Name & Address

All Virus Removals 100% Free on Fridays! 100% Free Phone Support between 12AM and 6AM.

If they have a toll free number make sure you use it!

 

[MarkIT]

Hmm,,

Just Print up some advertisments for computer repair for you competitor, and help him out.

Competitors Name & Address

All Virus Removals 100% Free on Fridays! 100% Free Phone Support between 12AM and 6AM.

If they have a toll free number make sure you use it!

A possible choice...but no, not quite the right thing to do.
Here's a few more options that you can do where they will go to the customer directly:
Send out a bulk mail (or canvas an area with flyer to their homes)

Print out a bunch of large address stickers with your info on it. Go to the local newspaper store buy all the papers in the store then place your label on each newspaper and give them away for free (since you paid for them you can do this) The label needs to begin with "Compliments of [yourname computers]. Store owners should let you do this. This works I've done it.
what may cost about $100 in newspapers can potentially add up to much more in potential customers.

Have fun and may you business grow!

 

[synack2]

"A possible choice...but no, not quite the right thing to do."

But funny!

Seriously, If they are that scared of you. You are doing something right.

Why did they take your add down, are you better than them, cheaper than them, what made them scared of your add. It shows there own insecurity to do that. Find out why and you get to move you advertising to the next level and put it into something that they can't take down and use their weakness to your advantage.

My favorite one was when someone bought and adverising on a bench for "Nerd Reserve" and it was directly in front of Buckeye PC Repair. That bench turned up missing rather quickly.

I have had people do this kind of stuff to me. I even had a competitor take out a full color page add to tell me that they had Geek Quality and Nerd Prices. At the time I was a partner in a company called Geek Squared. My response was well if you want quality come see us, if you want it cheap go see them. I even had it framed and hanging in my shop at the time. I got a lot of business from that add, because people immediately knew that we set the standard of quality. Now I am actually friends with the owner of that business and do laptop board level repairs for them.

How about a flyer that is actually a coupon for 25% off. And put grab it now before "Competiors name" steals it.

I find that things people may use are good giveaways that bring me business. Screwdrivers, Pens, Calendars. That may be a good way to go too.

 

[RichmondTech]

1. I can't believe you have time to go around to all the local businesses to put up advertising materials.

2. I don't think you can do anything about someone messing with your advertising materials on a pegboard.

3. I would look back and see exactly how many customers you've received from these advertising materials in the local businesses to determine if it's even worth spending the time to keep doing it.

4. I would work on having 8-10 strategies to bring in business and focus on the top three strategies that have brought in the most business to you.

 

[ArtemusComputerTechnology]

I would contact my lawyer to be sure. Free advertisement ; totally agree with it, but when it come to tearing down my signs. big problem.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

This is a common occurrence when you use "free pinboard space" in some storefronts, countertops, front windows, etc...of other retail businesses. It is not your place to police those things..you put up your cards/rip-tags/flyers at your own risk. Half the store owners just rip them down later anyways...sure they say "Yes you can put up your stuff"...but many don't like the clutter and remove half of it a day or so later anyways.

IMO not right to add to the civil court case load with such a laughable thing either...they're already filled with many time wasting cases.

For small local advertising, turn to those really localized weekend newspapers.

 

[Tekko]

About the only law I can think of that might cover this would be petty vandalism. But even if you could make a convincing case for it, you would not have legal standing to sue. It seems to me that when you put the sign in another store's window, it became the property of that store's owner.

This is incorrect. If you have the store owners permission to advertise on their property than you remain the legal owner of said advertising material. Removal of it is theft.

How about a flyer that is actually a coupon for 25% off. And put grab it now before "Competiors name" steals it.

Technically speaking, its possible to be sued for this. I would not use anything that directly identifies the competitor.

 

[Jester5510]

Just Print up some advertisments for computer repair for you competitor, and help him out.

Competitors Name & Address

All Virus Removals 100% Free on Fridays! 100% Free Phone Support between 12AM and 6AM.

If they have a toll free number make sure you use it!

Hahaha, this is the funniest thing I've read all week.

 

[Jester5510]

A possible choice...but no, not quite the right thing to do.
Here's a few more options that you can do where they will go to the customer directly:
Send out a bulk mail (or canvas an area with flyer to their homes)

Print out a bunch of large address stickers with your info on it. Go to the local newspaper store buy all the papers in the store then place your label on each newspaper and give them away for free (since you paid for them you can do this) The label needs to begin with "Compliments of [yourname computers]. Store owners should let you do this. This works I've done it.
what may cost about $100 in newspapers can potentially add up to much more in potential customers.

Have fun and may you business grow!

That's actually a really good, thinking outside of the box idea. I'm going to definitely look into this.

 

[nesrinamb]

I say try to get him red handed on camera and send to youtube. I personally dont like some of my competitors but i wouldn't be going out taking their stuff down. I know they paid money to have stuff printed out and then took their time to set it up in different places.

 

[Reset]

Yea theres really nothing you can do. Use less you can prove it and it has damaged your business. It has happened to me but they did it on google, yahoo, bing, and local.com but little did this competitor know that Ive filled a lawsuit because ive had a lawyer request logs from them all which proves who did it which was kind of hard to hide from this when they left there contact info and it matches there ip address from there business isp account. They have admitted to it and now im seeking damages. Good thing i had a new customer that informed me that they couldn't find my listing when they tried to leave me a review. Who know how long that would have when on.

 

[gikstar]

I would probably hire a high school student to go around each week to repost any that are missing.
I suspect that the person who is removing your ads will get tired of doing it after a while.