DHgate is one of the pioneers of China’s cross-border trade platforms. It was launched in Beijing, China in 2004 and has been in operation for nearly 20 years.
For information about the development of Dhgate over the years, you can search online, which has very complete information, but it is still somewhat embellished by the authorities. The real effect, first-hand information, and insider information of this platform are mostly derived from our many years of experience in this circle and the information provided by some industry friends who work at the DHgate headquarters.
In the early years, some sellers did make a fortune through DHgate, but only a small number of them did so because the traffic on DHgate was too limited. These people had the right time, right place, and right people, and had certain internal resources, so they could monetize the limited traffic resources on DHgate through counterfeit projects.
Let’s do a search and enter the keyword “designer watches” on the homepage of DHgate.
Similarly, anyone with a discerning eye can tell that it is a Rolex Submariner series. Let’s click into the details page.
All information related to the Rolex logo has been erased, and no information about the brand can be displayed on the page.
Let’s take a look at the information of this store owner.
It’s a 5-year-old store, and the indicators seem to be pretty good. It’s also the top seller on DHgate… Everything seems to be very awesome.
Like AliExpress, I’ll give you a spoiler here and pour some cold water on you: for most people, don’t hold out too much hope when it comes to selling replica brands online in DHgate.
Let’s get to the point.
[The model of DHgate]
DHgate was initially a platform that mainly served C-end customers (friends who have worked at DHgate should know this), but with the emergence of AliExpress a few years later, DHgate was quickly left behind and then transformed into the wholesale B-end field. In the C-end field of cross-border e-commerce, AliExpress immediately dominated the cross-border e-commerce in China in a short period of time, and DHgate was completely unable to compete for the following reasons:
① AliExpress has a huge user base of Alibaba sellers, such as China’s Taobao and Tmall, and user data can be quickly imported;
② Traffic scale: AliExpress, a localized product of Alibaba, has 10 times, or even 100 times, the traffic of DHgate.com. Anyone who has worked on these two platforms knows that AliExpress has the same status in Russia as Taobao in China, and has a large buyer group in the United States, Brazil, and Europe. On the contrary, DHgate.com has very little traffic, not even a fraction of AliExpress. For free members, the so-called natural ranking optimization is nothing, because non-member accounts have very low weights, and many efforts are not linked to rankings. You should be more Buddhist in your mentality. The platform is free for you to use, which is very good for you. It is normal for an order to pop up occasionally. For member seller accounts, the weight will be slightly higher, but more often it is exaggerated. The platform itself has very little traffic. Even if you pay to open a store, the traffic is relatively limited. This is reality. Therefore, DHgate did not leave a very good impression on veteran sellers in the industry in those years.
③、Charging model: Before 2016, AliExpress was completely free for sellers to join, and one can imagine how confident they were in their own products. However, DHgate was different. It adopted a ladder-style seller level entry, such as early free membership, platinum membership, crystal membership, and diamond membership. The membership fees started from 9,800 yuan/year and went up to 16,800 yuan/year. In addition, there were a large number of paid value-added services for sellers, such as various traffic packages, including the later A+ plan, Golden Camel (29,000 yuan/year), Silver Camel, Bronze Camel, etc. There were countless charging items. I don’t mean to belittle DHgate here, but just objectively explain a fact: unlike AliExpress, DHgate’s income does not come from a large number of terminal buyers, but to a large extent from the platform’s “breadwinners” sellers.
DHgate’s profit model of relying on sellers can be seen from their business model. DHgate has authorized agents in various cities. These companies claiming to be DHgate’s provincial general agents are emerging one after another. When recruiting, there is actually a component of false propaganda, saying how easy DHgate is to do business, and a wholesale order can be equivalent to hundreds of retail orders; when encountering potential customers who want to make imitation brands, they say that DHgate can make replica products and is the only platform that can make counterfeit brands; then there are various persuasions, and every time they say there are discounts, they will soon expire and become invalid, and the opportunity should not be missed, etc. In the early years of cross-border e-commerce, an agent in Xiamen, China, called me every month, and every month there were different discounts, and every time they said it was the last discount of the year… There was also an agent in Yiwu, China, who called me every once in a while after six months when I clearly stated that I would not renew the contract several times. Even if I didn’t answer the phone, he still persevered and pursued me.
Compared with DHgate, the early charging system of AliExpress was very clear. Apart from the order commission and the direct train click bidding fee, there were basically no other additional fees. It can be said that the profit positioning of the two is different. AliExpress focuses more on “mutual benefit and win-win” with merchants, which is the most long-term model.
[Imitation products still exist on DHgate]
sort by price, and you will see the imitation brand styles.
We can see that these imitations are sold almost openly and without any hesitation on the DHgate website. It seems to be very common, but sometimes we have to see the essence through the phenomenon.
[How do counterfeit brands survive on DHgate]
These stores generally have several characteristics when selling:
①. Don’t dare to use big words: Brand words, replicas, etc. are big words in the counterfeit industry. These words are taboo. Once they are put up, the system will detect them. Even deformed words cannot be used, such as derivative words such as L__V;
②. Logo: All brand logos are photoshopped, leaving only the bare product. Buyers who have bought knockoff brands can understand it at a glance;
③. Code words: Generally, buyers will be prompted to contact the merchant through WhatsApp or WeChat to obtain more detailed pictures (or also called real pictures)
④. QR code: Some merchants will also place a QR code under the store’s detail, disguised as a certain picture. Once the buyer scans the picture, it will jump to the merchant’s real album, such as the photo album;
The above four points are for general settled sellers, or sellers who settle in for free, or sellers who have paid but still not enough. The most important point is: there is not much traffic.
⑤. Paid enough protection fees: Because the platform’s resources are limited, a large number of merchants have left in recent years. Some agents will deceive you when recruiting merchants. When they see you selling counterfeit brands, they will even “threaten” you to “pay protection fees” to make high imitation brands. In this way, the platform will turn a blind eye during the review and promise traffic support. Otherwise, you cannot make counterfeit products, and even your funds will be frozen. According to some friends in the circle who worked at the headquarters of DHgate before, the opening of the Golden Camel and the DHgate counterfeit brand technology that was previously hot on the market are all money-making routines. It’s just that after receiving the “protection fee”, the internal staff used their authority to relax a little during the review, but this is actually useless. Even if you open the Golden Camel or the Silver Camel, you still can’t change the situation of no traffic and orders. If you are a little luckier, after a link becomes a little popular, you will immediately receive a lawyer’s letter from the brand owner. Then, the platform’s approach is naturally to kill the donkey after it has done its job and freeze the funds.
[What are the benefits of selling imitation brands online in DHgate]
Collection: The current mainstream payment methods have basically zero tolerance for imitations, such as PayPal, Stripe, etc. When selling counterfeit brands online in DHgate, many times, the platform only exists as a payment tool, but in the end it is difficult to escape the situation where the funds are frozen, and it is difficult for anyone to be safe.
[What are the disadvantages of selling counterfeit brands online in DHgate]
①. No traffic: DHgate’s traffic has always been criticized. Even if various paid projects are launched, it is still difficult to change it to a large extent.
②. Freeze funds: When you are lucky, after a link becomes popular, you will immediately receive a lawyer’s letter from the brand, and then the account will be punished and the funds will be frozen. Therefore, it is not difficult to find that the vast majority of counterfeit stores on the platform have a low level because they cannot last too long (except for those who pay enough protection fees);
③. Loss: We do not rule out the possibility that a few merchants are particularly good at counterfeiting brands on the platform, and even make a lot of money, but these less than 1% of sellers all have “internal backgrounds”. At least for 99% of sellers, it is basically difficult to survive. Therefore, using DHgate to replicas will eventually lead to “bankruptcy”. The disadvantages outweigh the advantages and are not recommended. Including the prices mentioned above, the average customer price of bags on the independent site is 250-400 US dollars (ordinary quality), but in order to survive on DHgate, the prices are all “rock-bottom prices”. A product with an average customer price of less than 30 US dollars is also free shipping, so the profit can be imagined.
Can we understand that in order to seize very limited traffic, after paying various protection fees, sellers are caught in endless internal friction without any profit.
