It is learned that on March 26, Amazon released its 2023 Brand Protection Report. In 2023, Amazon discovered, seized and properly handled more than 7 million counterfeit goods worldwide, and supported and cooperated with Chinese law enforcement agencies to successfully carry out more than 50 law enforcement actions, including the arrest of hundreds of people involved in the case by law enforcement agencies. The chaos of selling counterfeit goods in the cross-border industry has always been endless. Major e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, have long been committed to cracking down on counterfeit and stolen goods and maintaining the platform's business environment. However, there is a cross-border platform that has become popular overseas by selling knockoffs, and that is the reverse overseas shopping platform - Pandabuy . It is reported that the sales of some of the big-name knockoffs on Pandabuy even surpass the genuine ones. However, due to the rampant infringement and counterfeiting on the platform, Pandabuy, which has affected many big brands, has also been targeted by relevant regulatory authorities. Recently, there was news that Pandabuy was raided by the police. It was reported that on April 11, a law enforcement team of more than 200 people composed of Shanghai public security personnel raided Pandabuy's various business premises and more than 30 main suspects were detained. While inspecting Pandabuy’s domestic warehouses, law enforcement officers found millions of packages containing more than 200 products from various brands, and more than 1,700 Pandabuy employees engaged in warehouse management and cross-border transportation were on site. In fact, due to the long-term sale of a large number of brand imitation products, Pandabuy has long been targeted by brands and regulatory authorities. In October 2023, Cantoop reported the relevant infringement case to the Changning Branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. After more than six months of investigation, the police found that Pandabuy's infringement activities extended to five cities in China, involving more than 2,200 employees and a warehouse area of 100,000 square meters. Then in November 2023, the British police cooperated with a number of intellectual property protection companies and launched an investigation with the domestic police through an international trade law firm. It was finally discovered that Pandabuy was suspected of selling a large number of counterfeit brand-name sports shoes, and the seized packages covered hundreds of thousands of pairs. Not only that, at the end of last year, a blogger on YouTube was sued by the well-known sports brand Nike for posting a tutorial on buying counterfeit brands on Pandabuy. In early April, Pandabuy also had a data leak. Two hackers claimed to have exploited a vulnerability in the Pandabuy API and obtained a large amount of user sensitive data such as names, phone numbers, addresses, etc. According to data from Have I Been Pwned, more than 1.34 million Pandabuy accounts were affected. It can be seen that in the past six months, Pandabuy has been repeatedly pushed to the forefront. According to an insider, due to the long-term sale of a large number of infringing products on the platform, many internationally renowned brands have participated in the "crusade" against Pandabuy. The police investigation of Pandabuy has also attracted widespread attention overseas, and many foreign sellers are worried that their packages will not be delivered in time. However, according to multiple sources, the results of the investigation have not yet been officially released, but Pandabuy has not stopped operating. For domestic sellers, Pandabuy may not be well-known, but it is quite popular among foreigners who shop overseas. Official data shows that Pandabuy is a one-stop cross-border e-commerce service platform for global overseas individual users. It focuses on the development of the "reverse overseas shopping" market and provides overseas individual users with comprehensive services such as purchasing Chinese products, freight consolidation, quality inspection, customs clearance and tax declaration. As of now, Pandabuy has become the largest platform in China's cross-border purchasing agent market , serving users in more than 200 countries, with more than 7 million platform users, an average daily order volume of nearly 100,000 orders, and an average daily sales of more than 10 million yuan in purchasing agent business. In a nutshell, Pandabuy is not only a reverse overseas shopping platform serving foreigners, but also has the attributes of a logistics service provider. Pandabuy does not directly manufacture products, but rather acts as a purchasing agent for overseas users. Buyers only need to paste the product link to complete the order, and Pandabuy will provide logistics and transportation services, and conduct quality inspections on the products. The specific process can be summarized as follows: - Order: Buyers select products and place orders
- Bag: Pandabuy warehouse verifies the package
- Receipt: Buyer signs for the package
According to data from similarweb, as of January 2024, Pandabuy's global visits reached 15.71 million. It is also reported that Pandabuy achieved a GMV of 39.6 billion in 2023, with annual revenue exceeding 4 billion. Why has such a seemingly unknown cross-border platform in China become so popular overseas in just two years? It is learned that with the help of rich social media marketing methods, Pandabuy ushered in a period of explosive growth in 2022. It is reported that Pandabuy invited KOLs and Internet celebrities on social platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and Reddit to promote it under the gimmick of high cost performance and comparable to big brands. Through extensive social media marketing, Pandabuy has successfully created a word-of-mouth effect, attracting a large number of young European and American users who are pursuing cost-effective consumption, and has accumulated more than one million users to date. But at the same time, while the platform purchases a large number of cost-effective Chinese products from Taobao and JD.com for overseas consumers, it is also filled with a large number of imitations of big brands and cheap knockoffs, some of which are even more popular than the genuine ones. Pandabuy became popular by relying on counterfeit brands, but is now being "bittered" by counterfeit brands. The lesson of Pandabuy has undoubtedly once again sounded the alarm for cross-border sellers. It is not difficult to see that the relevant regulatory authorities are increasingly tightening their crackdown on infringement and counterfeiting in cross-border exports. At the same time, the supervision of domestic cross-border platforms and overseas e-commerce platforms such as Amazon is also constantly deepening. Cross-border sellers also need to strengthen their copyright awareness, follow a compliant operation path, and be careful not to touch the red line of infringement.
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