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 (深圳市环球易购电子商务有限公司).
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’s parent company has been losing money for a few years and especially took a hit in Q4 2020.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Serves them right, glad to see them suffer.
Same. They screwed me over with a fake product once and I never used them again. Die in a fire, Gearbest.
Spelling mistake?
“and now reply.” -> “and no reply.”
…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/
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!
It looks like Global Top E-commerce may not be the only casualty. I’ve heard other businesses dealing with electronics gadgets and components are having financial difficulties. I think it’s probably due to the chip shortage and higher price. They must have high fixed costs, low margins, and with supply constraints and higher prices they probably cannot be profitable at this time. Some are allegedly attempting to raise capital on the stock market (IPO) to stay afloat.
Just look how many Tom-Top’s and others brands have been banned from Amazon recently because cheating with fake reviews…
GearBest website has been down at least for 16 hours…
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.
as of now its backup
Down again, and for a few days. GearBest pages are starting to disappear from Google search…
GearBest website is back up…
But I noticed there are zero new arrivals… So I don’t think it’s maintained at this time.
gearbest owes me 1056$ on a refund, how will I get it back???
They owe me a bit over $500. I don’t think I’ll ever see it.
If they get out of bankruptcy proceedings and the website continues operating, maybe they will refund people who returned or never received the products.
If the company/website closes for good, then the money is probably gone for good.
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…
At least in TV box niche Gearbest is not in vain. TV boxes are expendables anyway. And 1080p boxes are obsolete for 4K TVs.
Gearbest sucks. They rip you off and have no problems doing it. I hope the owners catch covid and croak. F them.