Throughout 2021, user complaints against the store continued to increase. Orders that were not shipped, unresponsive customer service, etc. The store increased its prices throughout the year, in addition to imposing stricter conditions for external sellers who advertised on the store’s marketplace.
Lack of stock and orders that were not shipped
These changes were made in order to clean up some accounts that were in the red. Little by little the store was plunging into a spiral of financial problems, where there were products that were not shipped, and users who did not pay with PayPal had serious problems receiving refunds. Thus, in recent months, the store barely had stock of products.
Various websites began to warn that Gearbest was ceasing to be a legit website for shopping in China, where they also did not respond to any email. Now the web is gone, and It has not worked since this weekend. Upon entering, a message appears saying “Invalid URL The requested URL”[no URL]”, Is invalid.” The latest version available in Google cache is from September 7.
Thus, nothing is currently known about users who had orders pending shipment or arrival. If you did not pay with PayPal, it may be very difficult to get your money back. The store has not even notified its third-party sellers and affiliates of the closure. On their Twitter account in Japan, the last tweet is from August 5, while, on Facebook, where they had a lot of activity, the last post is from July 7.
In June, the gearbest matrix, Global Top E-Commerce Co., Ltd (previously known as Shenzhen Globalegrow Electronic Commerce Co. Ltd), filed for bankruptcy and stopped paying wages to workers. The company had 3,000 employees, and at the beginning of the year they only had 500. From Poland they say that the company has already fired all workers. Currently the bankruptcy process is under review. The value of the company on the stock market has not stopped falling in recent years, since they have not stopped for years. to lose money.
The bankruptcy of a company does not have to imply its end. Someone can get hold of the assets at low cost and restore operations, but in this case it is difficult for this to happen, so buyers do not have much to do with the web, since they are not responding to emails nor in other ways of contact. The price competition from other websites, and the new European VAT law have been too much for a website that seemed too big to end this way.