Gearbest’s parent company is in “bankruptcy review”

Gearbest parent’s company appears to be in serious financial troubles, with “bankruptcy review” documents filled in Guangdong court for Global Top E-Commerce Co., Ltd, after several years of losses.

Gearbest.com is one of the most popular online websites based in China selling to overseas markets. It is owned by Global Top E-Commerce Co. Ltd (previously Shenzhen Globalegrow Electronic Commerce Co. Ltd) and was launched around 2014. At the time, it was all fun and games with a growth strategy meaning they’d send products to anyone with a platform, and here at CNX Software, we got plenty of TV boxes, mini PCs, and 3D printers for review.

But eventually, samples dried out as the company switched to focus on profitability, Google started promoting YouTube reviews rather than written reviews, and a new law in Thailand prevented me from importing TV boxes in a time and cost-effective manner.

In recent years, I’ve basically stopped linking to Gearbest as most products were not a good fit for the topics I was interested in, and sites Aliexpress, Banggood, or Seeed Studio have become more relevant. I still had some affiliate income from a few years &  decided to withdraw the funds to PayPal. I was told it would take two weeks. Then four weeks later nothing happened, so I sent an email and got no reply so far.

So I checked if others had similar issues, and indeed I could see a video by Xiaomify recommending people not to purchase goods from Gearbest, nor join their affiliate program. Eventually, he got his funds after uploading the video, and several months after his initial request.

But then I noticed a report from Gizchina from June showing documents from a case filed in Guangdong Province court categorized as a “bankruptcy review” and involving ICBC bank and Global Top E-Commerce Co., Ltd ().

Gearbest bankruptcy Global Top E-Commerce

Bankruptcy does not necessarily mean the GearBest will disappear, but current stockholders and bondholders will probably have to take cuts. Actually, they already have to a large extent as the company is listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange and the stock price has plummeted.

Gearbest stock market
Source: Yahoo Finance

Gearbest’s parent company has been losing money for a few years and especially took a hit in Q4 2020.

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18 Comments
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Theguyuk
Theguyuk
3 years ago

Serves them right, glad to see them suffer.

David Willmore
David Willmore
3 years ago

Same. They screwed me over with a fake product once and I never used them again. Die in a fire, Gearbest.

zoobab
3 years ago

Spelling mistake?

and now reply.” -> “and no reply.”

PuceBaboon
3 years ago

…and then there was their infamous customer database leak, which didn’t win them any new friends.

https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/03/17/gearbest-database-breach/

Jay
3 years ago

Which they said they will fix (like claims typical of Chi websites), but all they did in reality was reset the password!

I had my account deleted after much deliberation with Customer Support. They wouldn’t even let go of my account. Goodness, what an ordeal it was dealing with them!

Javi
3 years ago

Just look how many Tom-Top’s and others brands have been banned from Amazon recently because cheating with fake reviews…

gabs
gabs
3 years ago

I’ve bought a tablet in gearbest thinking it was a good deal, the 29th of august… Still no shipping, no response from neither seller or GB. I’m going to try and get the PayPal protection, because losing 130€ is not the best.

trs80
trs80
3 years ago

as of now its backup

George
George
3 years ago

gearbest owes me 1056$ on a refund, how will I get it back???

Javi
3 years ago

They broken the tv box market. GB Didn’t have interesting about profits, the goal was getting investment. Didn’t return damaged products to manufacturers (is not suspicious?), then stopped paying them. I knew this would happen from at least 2 years ago…

Krotow
Krotow
3 years ago

At least in TV box niche Gearbest is not in vain. TV boxes are expendables anyway. And 1080p boxes are obsolete for 4K TVs.

Randy Scott
3 years ago

Gearbest sucks. They rip you off and have no problems doing it. I hope the owners catch covid and croak. F them.

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