Websites and apps are all down! A well-known independent website has a big sale...

Previously, Global Easy Shopping's debt crisis broke out and the company faced the risk of bankruptcy. This news spread widely in the industry, and its brands also suffered one after another. Recently, there was news that another independent station platform under Global Easy Shopping seemed to be "dead". What exactly is going on?

Is Gearbest, the leading independent website in the 3C category, completely shut down?

Global Easy Shopping is facing a debt crisis, and its independent sites have not been spared. Earlier, its fashion independent site platform Zaful was split off and started to operate independently. Now, Gearbest, a comprehensive e-commerce platform specializing in electronic products, has also encountered problems.

The incident can be traced back to a week ago, when foreign media reported that the website of Gearbest, an independent website platform under Global Easy Shopping, could not be opened . When the website address was entered, the pop-up page showed "lnvalid URL (invalid address) " .

Some sellers and suppliers of Gearbest also said that their website could not be opened. At that time, some industry insiders speculated that Gearbest was "out of business" and that was why it could not be opened. However, some suppliers said that their backend could still be opened, so they judged this incident as a frontend failure.

But things don't seem to be that simple. Within a week after the incident, the editor tried to log in to the Gearbest website using different domestic and foreign browsers, but found that none of them could be opened.

In the APP Store, the editor found that Gearbest could still be searched, so he tried to download Gearbest through the APP Store. After the download was successful, he opened the APP but found that all pages could not load data.

  Following the clues, the editor searched Gearbest's Facebook account and YouTube account and found that they had not updated relevant content for two months. Not only that, there were also content about Gearbest being offline on overseas websites and social media platforms , which made people wonder if Gearbest was really "dead".

A seller revealed that "Gearbest had problems a long time ago, but it was only uncovered now. It couldn't withdraw money as early as October last year . It's another mess. " If the seller's revelation is true, then the suppliers are the saddest. After all, the incident of Global Easy Shopping's suppliers not getting paid is still fresh in people's memory.

Gearbest's monthly active users plummeted 400 times

In fact, the current situation of Gearbest can be seen in the semi-annual report of Cross-Border Communication in 2021. Cross-Border Communication did not mention Gearbest in its branding strategy, but only emphasized the need to strengthen the construction of key brands such as ZAFUL and Rosegal. It makes people wonder whether Cross-Border Communication has given up Gearbest?

Affected by many factors, Gearbest's various data showed a cliff-like decline. The financial report shows that Gearbest's monthly active users in the first half of 2021 were only 61,400, compared with 26.66 million at the end of last year, a plunge of more than 400 times; its monthly visits fell 100 times to 1.4301 million times.

Judging from the financial report data, not only the monthly active users and monthly visits, but also the repurchase rate has been reduced by two times, the average monthly traffic conversion rate has been as low as 0.029% , and the average customer price has been reduced by $15. Now it seems that all of these are foreshadowing the "closure" of Gearbest.

As a well-known cross-border B2C comprehensive e-commerce platform, Gearbest has been ranked among the top 50 Chinese global brands for five consecutive years. Its various data are very outstanding. Now it is suddenly "closing down", which makes people sigh. If it really comes to this, I am afraid it has been forced into a desperate situation.

Gearbest ’s success is not only due to its own reasons, but also to the impact of the debt crisis of Global Easy Shopping. In addition, due to the impact of Amazon’s account suspension, some sellers have decided to transform to independent sites, but the fate of Gearbest may affect the next decision of some sellers.

In this year's cross-border e-commerce market, many sellers are having a hard time. In addition to Gearbest's "closing" and Amazon's account blocking, some sellers have refurbished their inventory in order to improve their performance, which has led to their stores being blocked.

Refurbished inventory leads to store closure? Sellers should be vigilant

Refurbished inventory may be regarded as one of the ways to reduce the cost of warehouse transfer recognized by many Amazon sellers. This method can transfer the inventory to another ASIN for resale in the shortest time, thus solving the inventory problem.

Recently, a seller said that he received an email from Amazon and learned that his account had been deactivated and his funds had been frozen.

The email shows that since the seller has modified ASIN attributes or transferred inventory between ASINs directly or with the help of a third party, it has violated Amazon's Seller Code of Conduct . Therefore, in accordance with Section 3 of the Amazon Business Solutions Agreement , the account will be deactivated and funds will be frozen until the issue is resolved.

In the eyes of many sellers, the safest and most reliable method of handling inventory is internal renovation. However, now it seems that this path is also risky and may lead to the closure of the store if you are not careful.

“If I want to unblock it, I have to provide the name and information of the third party, as well as detailed records of the refurbished ASIN, etc. I wanted to take a shortcut but ended up getting into a lot of trouble!” The seller said that the whole process is quite cumbersome and the platform’s requirements are becoming more and more stringent.

This situation may be commonplace for many experienced sellers. These so-called "black technologies" have been circulating in the circle for a long time. In addition to the internal refurbished inventory used by the above sellers, there is also a method called "refurbished listing" that makes a lot of sellers love and hate it.

Some time ago, a seller shared his "failure" on the forum. The seller said that he followed the usual procedures, opened a case with the customer service to convert the inventory, and then converted to FBA and it could be sold. There was nothing abnormal before, and the conversion of inventory was also smooth, but it could not be sold after converting to FBA.

The seller initially did not take this situation seriously, thinking that the product would become available for sale after waiting for 24 hours. However, when the product still did not become available for sale after 36 hours, the seller panicked and opened a case to ask customer service. He was told that the reason for the unsale was the inconsistency between the Amazon inventory management page, the inventory management page, and the warehousing information.

More and more sellers have deeply realized the difficulty of the "renovation road". Some sellers speculated: "The success rate is getting lower and lower. Will the brother-in-law come to settle the score one day? At that time, no one with a renovation record will be able to escape."

It is not difficult to see from Amazon's rectification this year that the platform's supervision is becoming increasingly strict, and Amazon is also taking action to point out the path of compliant operation for sellers. When sellers use conventional methods of handling inventory (such as moving warehouses, abandoning, and clearing inventory) , they must make comprehensive considerations to determine whether it will bring risks to the store, and be more careful of potential scams.

The editor reminds all sellers that "shortcuts" are likely to be accompanied by greater risks, and "black technology" is not advisable. The best option is to abide by platform rules and work more on products and services.

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