The J&J products have been off the shelf since April 15 and no more fresh orders are encouraged by retailers that include chemists, a leading chemist in south Mumbai said. Retailers now plan a gathering at the city's Kamgar Stadium, near Dadar, around mid-June if J&J does not reinstate the original levels of its margins. Over 7,000 retailers are expected to participate and will have a bonfire with the unsold J&J products.

J&J lowered retailer margins to 18 per cent from 20 per cent on its sanitary napkins sold under the brand name of Carefree and Stayfree early April. And on its recently launched sanitary napkin, Secure, the margins were as low as 15 per cent. The J&J top management did notrespond to a faxed query by The Financial Express on this issue.

The Mumbai-based Retail and Dispensing Chemists' Association (RDCA) has denied its involvement in the boycott. According to Kishore Shah, president of RDCA, the boycott has been spearheaded by a leading retailer, whose identity has been kept a secret. The retailer is better known as `Tiger' among the trading circles, Shah said.

The Mumbai-based Association has 4,600 retailers as its members.This is not the first time J&J has been put in a tight spot. In 1993 J&J lowered the retailers' margin on all its products to 15 per cent from 20 per cent. The company, after facing lot of resistance from retailers, not only restored the margins but also reimbursed the notional losses incurred by retailers during the period when the cut was imposed. In 1995 J&J again slashed margins on some of its products to 15 per cent from 20 per cent.

Traders boycotted J&J and the margins were brought back to original levels. And in this year J&J slashed the marginon one product, sanitary napkins.Besides, the company is also accused of forming a cartel with its major competitors, viz, Procter & Gamble and Hindustan Levers Ltd and jointly decided to have a uniform 12-per cent margin on sanitary napkins for retailers. The daily turnover of J&J's sanitary napkins by retailers is in the range of Rs 50-Rs 55 lakhs as against P&G's Rs 65-Rs 70 lakhs.

Of the total sales of sanitary napkins in the country, Delhi consumes for 35 per cent, Maharashtra 45 per cent of which Mumbai alone consumes 90 per cent of the state's share. But anger is being vented out by retailers on J&J alone, mainly because the entire exercise was the brainchild of J&J, said a chemist. ``Now everybody, including J&J is giving us a 12-per cent margin on sanitary napkins sold,'' he said. J&J, has not reduced commissions or margins on other consumer products such as baby soaps, baby oil, shampoos and other baby care items but retailers have decided to boycott them all.

``When we are fighting a company,let us fight on all fronts,'' said a retailer.``On April 5 retailers stopped buying J&J products, by April 15, they had sold most of the existing stocks and stopped buying,'' he added.

So far 75 per cent of the chemists and retailers in Mumbai have joined Tiger.