Forum

Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Would really appreciate some advice if someone can kindly shed some light:

Over the last 6 months our niche has been taken over by some Chinese competitors with their stock based in the UK.

They have copying everything we have been doing from choosing to sell the same products, listing titles, subtitles & images etc, whilst undercutting the price to a point we cannot compete with.

Had them VERO'd several times, a couple of days later they're back with a new listing for the item and finding ways to make it rank up very quickly for the search terms.

It appears they're obviously got a big team with several accounts to keep buying up their own products to get them ranking high so fast.

Also got loads of duplicate listings under 2 accounts - in short ebay dont care even though we've complained loads about this.

Can't afford to walk away as this isn't a hobby or sideline business, its a full time business supporting our families that we put a lot of hard work and fund to build up.

As we pay VAT etc. we cant compete with their prices.

OK - all complaints aside, any tips on how to deal with this? Is their any way of getting them shutdown?

Alternatively, as we dont have a massive sales team with various accounts, could we also use stealth accounts to buy up our own products to get them ranking higher?

Any help or advice on this would be very much appreciated, many thanks

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Read the thread from yesterday about pretty much the same thing your asking

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Thanks for the update, can i trouble you to send me a link as the only thing i can find is related to buying up lots of f*** items, is this the one you mean?

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Yes thats the one

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

report to hmrc every single day until they do something

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

It is really difficult to kick anyone out of the game. You see the profit, and they will see it too, even higher than you because of tax, inventory cost. One account can be shut down, but they will have more. I met similar problem, and still have not found any clue....

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

What kind of price range are these items and how many "same" competitor accounts are we talking about?

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Why would British tax authority do something with a company based in China?

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Thought about the HMRC route - but then again wondered what they would/could actually do about it, block their containers at port? How would they ever find out the name of the consignee used to import...

They have about 5 accounts in total, 2 operating in our niche and the other 3 doing electronics.

Items range anywhere between £5-35. Honestly, i wouldn't be complaining if it was a domestic competitor as then the game would be more on a level playing field and im fairly sure people from this side of world would have a bit more dignity.

But given the tactics these guys are using and the fact we have complained so many times to ebay here about it to no avail really stuck as to what to do next...

To add insult to injury their personal eBay rep. actually contacted us from china to intervene when we righfully VERO'd them for using our images, on top of this they then VERO'd us on our own images and threatened they would keep doing this via ebay message!! (after appear our listings were reinstated despite having lost all sales history). Even after reporting all this to ebay they did absolutely nothing about it and said - "yes we understand it can be frustrating"!!

They seem to be untouchable - would really appreciate some advice on how to deal with these guys, any ideas?

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

I would take the 'strong approach' - the Chinese will run out of UK bank accounts after a while :)

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

They could just buy the bank.

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Im all up for the "strongest" of approaches, this has gone beyond, just standard business competition..they've taken this to another level...

Really appreciate all the input provided on this thread btw, thank you all for taking the time to respond :)

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Their stock is in the UK, they should be paying VAT on every sale. HMRC should and can contact ebay and get their account suspended, ask for all transactions and send them a VAT bill for every transaction.
They'll probably do nothing though, hence the 'every single day'

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Why not buy the items then report to ebay for a counterft on different stealths? That's what I used to do back when I sold Vero products . It's a lot of work but your always get your money back as ebay will do someth9ng if buyers report it.

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

If you buy them they will be banned faster and will have to stop for a month than repeat until they are sick of it . I'm sorry but that's what you need to deal with if you sell Vero products.

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Thanks for your input on this, the only thing is that these are non Vero items, they are generic and don't refer to any brand etc..the main reason we ever got vero involved was because of image theft..

Really thinking to explore the idea of getting loads of different stealth accounts and buying up our own stuff to make it rank. which surprisingly enough feels a lot more appealing than buying their stuff and reporting it/doing chargebacks..

One question, when using a stealth to buy stuff what address do the items get delivered to? Surely you can have the same shipping address for like 100+ accounts?

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

I see loads of Chinese sellers in my selling category. But they offer half the price, but all based in china. Best thing to do report them 10x a day.

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

If they bought from you , you could have them banned within a day but if not its hard.
Maybe buy from them leave negative and get their email address and make stealths with same emails as theirs.

Kind of ridiculous but thats all i can think of.

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

Thank so much for taking the time to respond - really appreciate it :)

Re: Help beating difficult overseas Competitors
 

just remembered this thread as I've just had similar happen to me. A little rat had the cheek to message one of my new stealth accounts and ask if I'm a authorized distributor lol when I know hes not himself and paying no tax and declaring everything as gift. Completely mugged me off under cutting me on one of my main selling items.
I've bought from him on 8-9 accounts already, going to neg him to death, open paypal/ebay disputes for not received/⊗⊗⊗⊗/broken. I'd advise doing that :)