Chloe Sues B2B Website for Enabling Counterfeit Sales

Chloe International SAS, a Paris-based fashion house, and three other producers of luxury goods sued Saudi Arabia based online B2B Marketplace for trademark infringement.

Complaint was filed on May 17 2011 in federal court in Los Angeles against Sawabeh Information Services Co.(Siscom). In the report Siscom is accused of promoting counterfeit luxury goods on a wholesale level through several B2B websites.

Also included as defendants is a list of alleged manufacturers of counterfeit goods.

One of the accused sites allows its member clients to sell so-called “replica” items, which Chloe says is “a term well understood to refer to counterfeit goods.” This website -- www.tradekey.com -- “makes its money by knowingly soliciting manufacturers, importers and distributors of counterfeit luxury goods to become paying members,” according to court papers.

Members of tradekey.com who pay a higher annual fee "are also provided a ‘dedicated relationship manager' to ensure products and offerings for counterfeit luxury goods are provided maximum exposure to anyone searching on the Internet of TradeKey.com for counterfeit luxury goods,” Chloe says in its pleadings.

Neither TradeKey.com nor Sawabeh Information Services responded immediately to an e-mailed request for comment.

In addition to Chloe, the other companies that have brought the suit are London’s Alfred Dunhill Ltd.; Officine Panerai AG of Neuchatel, Switzerland; and Hamburg-based Montblanc-Simplo GmbH. Although the plaintiffs asked that the case be filed under seal, the complaint was available to the public when the court file was accessed June 17.

The plaintiffs are represented by Mark A. Finkelstein, Susan M. Kayser and Jessica D. Bradley of Washington -based Jones Day.

The case is Chloe SAS v. Sawabeh Information Services Co., 2:11-cv-04147-GAF-MAN, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).

Tradekey is selling Scam - Tradekey Scam

Scam has become a famous keyword in last few years. With the growth of online B2B Marketplaces, on one side where trade has increased, scam cases also became prominent. Manufacturers from around the world flocked to register on B2B websites in a hope to get inquiries. These B2B marketplaces gave space to all manufacturers regardless of checking thier legitimacy.

Innocent buyers who first trust search engines and then the B2B website they visit ultimately, sometimes by trust points and sometimes by golden or silver badges, easily get trapped.

In the race of winning over competitors, every marketplace is continuously trying to make a difference, even when it comes to scam as well. Tradekey.com is selling scam products and promoting scam manufacturers from around the world. Illegal? Who cares!

Here is the result form "Tradekey Scam" search on Google.

Other than "Scam Seeds" products include the shouts of (maybe) buyers who got scammed at times.

Is Tradekey better than Alibaba & other B2B Marketplaces? - A Review

Started in 2006 with 20 million USD investment by one of the biggest IT groups in KSA, Tradekey.com has again proved that it can be better than any other B2B marketplaces including the B2B giant Alibaba.com. Recently when Google shook results of most of the B2B websites by announcing its Caffeine update, Tradekey.com was found winning the race with its state of the art SEO strategy. One more badge added when Google rewarded them with Page Rank of 8.

With Google Page Rank 8, Tradekey.com has become the only B2B marketplace on internet leaving behind the B2B giant Alibaba.com who still stands at PR 7. Not only this Tradekey members counter shows that it has surpassed 4 million registered members count. Well according to the size of B2B market Tradekey still has long way to go but as long as the technological competition is, Tradekey, as a B2B marketplace, has made its mark now.

These are a few technological breakthroughs that this b2b marketplace has overcome. What about the business strategy? There are still many questions unanswered on various forums about the authenticity of suppliers. Every now and then buyers post their stories of being cheated by registered suppliers which Tradekey.com claims as Trusted.

What about Alibaba now? As per Jack Ma although he says that he loves competitors and unfortunately he sees no competitor far far away. Will Ma Yun (Jack Ma) of Alibaba.com be looking to hire experts from Tradekey.com after trying Yahoo & Google engineers? That time will tell!

Tradekey Launched “Buy Now” Feature

Tradekey, a famous B2B marketplace, has just launched Buy Now feature on its official website, Tradekey.com. The feature seems to facilitate buyers to buy directly from the sellers. Unlike, DHGate & Alibaba’s Super Deals, Tradekey.com is not offering ESCROW services right now.

They are simply displaying products information along with the price per quantity suggested by the seller, shipping methods and a couple of product images. The Buy Now feature on tradekey.com seems to be in testing level. A couple of sellers have been selected for pilot project.

How “Buy Now” works on Tradekey.com?

When a buyer clicks on “buy now” button, it takes him to product detail page where buyer can view more information about the product and can enter the desired quantity. The quantity shouldn’t be less than the minimum quantity mentioned by seller. Fill in the desired contact information and click “Buy Now” to proceed to the next step. Unlike DHGate, Tradekey doesn’t display many details about the product. Buyer will have to contact seller, for further information.

On this step two emails are generated from Tradekey.com, 1 for the buyer as acknowledgment and the other to the seller. Here the actual communication between the seller & the buyer starts.
On “Thank you” page, Paypal link of the seller’s Paypal account is displayed. Tradekey so far is not taking any responsibility of the payments or the products. Buyer pays directly to sellers.

So far no information has been received from Tradekey.com about “Buy Now” feature. The success of this feature can be determined if more sellers are opt into this feature and Tradekey continues to deliver the services.

Tradekey Review - All about Tradekey.com - A B2B Directory

TradeKey.com with an initial investment of US$100 million started in June 2005 by a Saudi Arabian IT Company named SISCOM. In just 4 years, Tradekey.com is considered as one of the world’s leading business-to-business directories. The main purpose of this online trading b2b directory is to match the requirements of international importers and exporters to advance their businesses.

With over 25 Million page views and 6 Million visitors per month, Tradekey.com has been successful in wining the trust of so many international traders. According to the current members counter on Tradekey.com, 2.6 million importers & exporters have registered so far.

Unlike other b2b websites, Tradekey.com is the only b2b directory with ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications to ensure that its users experience the same quality every time they use their services and data security for risk free business. Tradekey.com is the only b2b website after Alibaba.com with Google PageRank 7.

According to Alexa statistics, Tradekey.com falls in the range of b2b websites with traffic under 7 million visitors a month which includes ECVV.com, EC21.com, ECPlaza.com and other small scale business-to-business trade directories. So far Alibaba.com, GlobalSources.com and MadeinChina.com are taking the lead with an unmatched competition.

Other than International English, Tradekey.com is available in 3 other languages which include Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. Although these versions of Tradekey.com are machine translated but it clearly shows their long term vision to cater as much business audience as possible.

Tradekey Services

Tradekey.com offers different services to its members to not just help them promote their products and services but also helps them in creating a brand image. Like other B2B directories, Tradekey offers free as well as premium memberships for sellers and buyers.

In premium memberships they offer 2 packages, i.e. SilverKey & Goldkey. The main difference between different levels of memberships is their rankings on the listings. Goldkey results are displayed on top of Silverkey followed by free members’ products and offers.

Silverkey prices start with $369 and goes up to $2500 while Goldkey starts from $2500 and sky is the limit depending upon the nature of services required from Tradekey. Goldkey members are also offered personalized services with a dedicated sales & support team. Goldkey & Silverkey members can also place banners on homepage for certain time.

Tradekey.com also offers buyers consultancy services. They ask buyers just to enter their requirement with their contact information. Later they contact buyers with appropriate sell offers.

Tradekey.com also offers different types of partnership plans to market its services to international members. A brigade of affiliates & partners is working actively in China which has caused a big trouble to the competitors of Tradekey.com including Alibaba & GlobalSources. This review has already become long enough to bore you, please visit Tradekey affiliate plans review.

Earn with Tradekey Affiliate Program, Sky is the Limit!

After success in B2C industry, affiliate programs are gaining fame in B2B industry as well. Why shouldn’t it! After all it’s a mutual beneficial sales program. Affiliates get paid on every lead they generate.

I saw Tradekey affiliate program postings on some forums recently, looked like posted by the same person for the sake of promoting his/her program. As per my knowledge people in China are making handsome money by promoting these packages to manufacturers. These affiliates are mostly working on cold calling and door-to-door marketing, convincing SME (small & medium size enterprise) owners about the importance and power of B2B marketing through online B2B websites.

Anyways, the Affiliate model by Tradekey is as follows:

Earnings per click: $0.01

Limitation:

• The clicks should not be from banned websites like gambling, porn or hacking websites
• Should not have a script or any illegal form of clicks behind it
• There should be a decent sign up ratio of free members
• Cookie: 1 week

Earning per lead: $0.75

Limitation:

• The free member should verify his email
• Should be a person related to B2B Market and International trading
• Should post 1 Product
• Should log-in at least 5 times

Earnings per Affiliate referrals: $5

Limitation:

• The Affiliate should earn $10 before the first Affiliate is paid $5 in his account
• Revenue, benefits under consideration and process to be paid to Affiliates:
• Additional amount if the profile of the free member is completed by referral
• Additional amount if all five products are posted by referral
• Additional amount if 5 sell offers are posted by referral (Then if 10 are posted and so on and so forth)
• Additional amount if 5 buy offers are posted by referral (Then if 10 are posted and so on and so forth)
• Additional amount if Trade alerts are activated by referral

* I would be happy to see the comments from Tradekey affliate member to know their perspective.

TradeKey.com, First ISO 9001 & 27001 Certified B2B Directory

TradeKey.com is a leading online business platform for importer and exporters. From research and development, to provide global trade expertise. TradeKey.com connects you with worldwide wholesale buyers, importers and exporters, distributors and agents in over 220 countries, quickly & cost effectively. TradeKey.com is the leading global b2b market place for international trade. We have a strong and deep passion for internet based trade. Our goal is to become the worlds leading destination for online trade by 2007.ISO 9001:2000: International Standard for Quality Management ISO 27001:2005: International Standard for Information Security.

TradeKey.com is the first B2B Platform worldwide which has achieved both of these International Certifications. These Certifications are an ample testimony of our firm commitment to continuous quality improvement, foolproof risk management and highest level of focus on customer satisfaction.

TradeKey.com has been ranked in the worlds top 1500 business websites with a monthly traffic of over 5 million visitors and 23 million pages views internationally. Every month, more than 3 million buyers use tradekey.com business platform to find new manufacturer, wholesale suppliers and product that generate transactions worth US$ 100 million.