Best way to go about removing Chinese competitors on Amazon

[chibul]

Okay I've been making a little money selling my product FBA. I find my product on eBay and craigslist and then I'd send them to Amazon and make some extra change.

Lately this product has been hijacked by counterfeiters from China. I know these are ⊗⊗⊗⊗ because I can only get about 6 a month because the product is discontinued and even when it was in production it was scarce so there's a high demand, and also there's videos all over youtube demoing the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ comparing the real ones to the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ and the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ are significantly inferior.

The chinese are counterfeiting this product and they have 200 of them at a time and prices are going way down and I can't make any money off of this anymore. All of these chinese sellers have "Just launched" instead of feedback and I bookmarked a dozen of them and they will sell 200 items and then drop off the planet and then the negatives start coming in after they are long gone. The problem is these people are dominating the buy box.

I came up with a clever idea to get rid of the counterfeiters. I bought a $25 Visa Gift Card and then I completely cleaned out the chinese sellers by buying up their entire inventory. I made the purchases using bogus information and did it at a public internet place so. The card only had $25 on it so it would decline, however the inventory got tied up in pending and after all the legit sellers that were lowering their prices to compete with the counterfeits got wiped out, I was getting an extra $45 per item.

The Chinese sellers are back and this time they have a limit of only 2 per buyer. My Visa gift card must be black balled from Amazon because everytime I use it under a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ buying account to buy something the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ buying account immediately gets suspended.

What would be the best way to send these chinese sellers packing? Buying all their inventory worked pretty well for a few weeks and my prices went up but I'm stumped on how I can do it with a 2 per limit.

I found a site called www.getcreditcardnumbers.com/ I am wondering what would happen if I created 50 bogus accounts and "bought" the inventory using 50 different bogus credit card numbers. My fear is that I don't want to use a number that happens to be somebody's real credit card number because I'm not trying to scam anybody. I'm trying to get rid of the scammers that are ripping people off selling crap, and I am trying to get the prices up for my items which are authentic.

[dachilla]

Buy one off them, then take picture and report counterfeit item to amazon and they'll be gone for good.

[Gladiator]

...if you know they're ⊗⊗⊗⊗ and can prove they are ⊗⊗⊗⊗ from your purchases just report them?

[kirkland]

My advice: find another product. This will be a losing endeavor for you, unfortunately, in my opinion

Would be different if you were the brand owner, but you are not

[GhostOfAmazon]

Originally Posted by Gladiator

...if you know they're ⊗⊗⊗⊗ and can prove they are ⊗⊗⊗⊗ from your purchases just report them?

This.

ONE counterfeit claim against a new seller account (especially one from CHINA) is a death sentence for the account.

[chibul]

Originally Posted by GhostOfAmazon

This.

ONE counterfeit claim against a new seller account (especially one from CHINA) is a death sentence for the account.

How do you even make a counterfeit claim? Seems like Amazon just wants you to return something if it's not as described rather than make a claim?

[Gladiator]

Originally Posted by chibul

How do you even make a counterfeit claim? Seems like Amazon just wants you to return something if it's not as described rather than make a claim?

Telling them the item is a knock-off/counterfeit/forgery/whatever will get them to examine the account.

[Yasav]

In my category 90% of the items on Amazon are **** and sold by overseas sellers. My small inventory that I obtained domestically at premium prices is no match for Chinese sellers who can undercut me several times fold and provide almost unlimited quantity while mine is extremely limited. So no Amazon for me..it's just insane out there.

[chibul]

So if I bought an item from the seller and paid for overnight shipping and left the seller negative feedback ASAP. Would that get them thrown off? A just launched seller that gets a negative does that get them thrown off?

[ebaystealth1974]

You've already been told how to do it. Read above, once more.

[SaiJin]

Here's my view on this... if they are on YOUR ASIN and you own the brand, sure go for it.

But if they are in their own listing and not hijacking you, I'd focus more on your own sales.

[chibul]

Originally Posted by ebaystealth1974

You've already been told how to do it. Read above, once more.

The problem with that advice is by the time Amazon takes any action the seller will be long gone and a new seller with a "Just Launched" rating will pop up and dominate the buy box. You really need to get these guys suspended within 24 hours of them showing up as they send a bunch of inventory to Amazon and once that inventory sells they dump the account and move on to a new account and have it timed where after a few days they dispose of the account and a new one pops up. I'm guessing they do this to avoid the hassle of getting suspended while the Amazon fulfillment center has a bunch of their inventory in stock and they now have to go through the hassle of getting it shipped back to them in China.

That's why I was wondering what would happen if I used a bunch of ⊗⊗⊗⊗ credit card numbers and purchased from them tying their inventory up.

[chibul]

Originally Posted by SaiJin

Here's my view on this... if they are on YOUR ASIN and you own the brand, sure go for it.

But if they are in their own listing and not hijacking you, I'd focus more on your own sales.

I don't own the ASIN and neither do they. A publicly traded company owns the ASIN, and my merchandise is the real deal and theirs is a low quality knock off as evidence by the feedback these accounts get as soon as they abandon their accounts and move on to the next account.

[Gladiator]

Originally Posted by chibul

I don't own the ASIN and neither do they. A publicly traded company owns the ASIN, and my merchandise is the real deal and theirs is a low quality knock off as evidence by the feedback these accounts get as soon as they abandon their accounts and move on to the next account.

Why don't you contact the manufacturer?

[SaiJin]

So are they even in the same listing as you?

[chibul]

Originally Posted by SaiJin

So are they even in the same listing as you?

yup, and they have the buy box. Totally ridiculous that Amazon gives the buy box to chinese sellers that have "Just Launched" next to their name.

[elmo]

I would personally just move onto different products as you'll spend a lot of time/effort trying to get them removed

If you're going to open complaints, you can do it through the seller help contact page, then by sending Amazon an email message

[GhostOfAmazon]

Originally Posted by chibul

yup, and they have the buy box. Totally ridiculous that Amazon gives the buy box to chinese sellers that have "Just Launched" next to their name.

Price factors into Buy Box ranking algorithms.

Wonder how the Chinese are able to even create so many Amazon accounts?

I guess they're good at phaking everything hahah

[SaiJin]

Originally Posted by chibul

yup, and they have the buy box. Totally ridiculous that Amazon gives the buy box to chinese sellers that have "Just Launched" next to their name.

Well I don't think it's ridiculous... if they offer better everything, of course they'll win the buy box. You can't think that way.

[cp74]

When comparing what you sell and what they offer (as ⊗⊗⊗⊗), how much quality and functionality difference? Price is always a trap for buyers. Chinese sellers always claim same functionality with less price.

I believe you need some negative feedback of their buyers then.

[HurricaneHuntr]

It's tough, i have my own branded product competitors are trying to poach, i registered the trademark back in january but it takes forever to get approved. In the mean time, i just send them cease and desist letters. Eventually they quit, fortunately my price isn't much more than their generics they peddle., i had someone on fiverr make me packaging and brand logo etc.. So now i can even have china put it on the product if i want. I had a guy this past week who kept canceling my test purchase, 15x! I think he figured out, keep canceling would kill his metrics, he finally gave up as of yesterday.He may or may not be back, i did report him w/o the test purchase option, but i finally got a order in, so when it comes, i'll document his ⊗⊗⊗⊗ vs my real and if he ever comes back.It's on.

[empirestate]

2 Billion people, you cannot remove them
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