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 ().
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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