How to protect your e-business
Recently, a very entertaining story happened, which is very indicative of the state of the current business on the Russian Internet, as well as possibly helping someone if they are suddenly faced with an opportunity that has happened to us.
For a start, a little background is - at the end of last year we launched quite a niche online store selling professional photo / video / audio equipment. Because this market is rather small and already occupied by rather large players, and even the crisis has not ended - you have to do everything at its best in order to start, and this is not only a beautiful picture (more on that later), but also content. As a result, it was decided to hire specialists who would make a beautiful functional picture, but also because we are making a store from scratch that also attracts competent specialists who will build a company policy from the very beginning and a policy to work with customers at the highest level - as a result, we found such specialists abroad. All done, opened, started working, gaining audience, good reviews, loyal customers and here you! They stole the design and opened and opened the "left" store ...
One of the buyers told our managers that there is exactly the same online store as us and is it not at all? Of course, it became interesting to us and in general, at first we took everything as a joke, even if it was stupid.
Well, they copied the template, well, they made a shop, well, they took photos from a photo shoot - sometimes it happens now, you won't be surprised by anyone like that. It is clear that the idea, design, corporate identity, even the logo is brazenly stolen, but like any clone - it is always worse than the original. Naturally, first of all, they sent an official request to the owners of the store to stop this goddamned rudeness, only in a decent official form, of course.
But this turned out to be only the beginning of the whole story, unfortunately after a while we started to report about not flattering responses to our address, which began to appear on the Internet, moreover, information about cases of fraud by the store administration (such as a one-day shop and etc.).
')
Not only did they drastically increase their corporate identity, they also openly spoil their reputation - this is not a big problem for an old well-known large store, it is solved by itself over time, but if you recently opened, you have a narrow professional audience (and the equipment which we sell costs like any professional equipment), which will not work with a store to which there is no trust and we understood this very clearly.
And here our western friends, already friends, helped us. The fact is that abroad, the problem of competition, as you understand, between online stores is much sharper, and often the price of goods alone is not enough to start buying from you, along with the price is the same:
If at all points most of the old and good new stores are not something that does not lag behind, and sometimes even a head taller, then we somehow don’t pay attention to trust, but this is a big mistake, because A lot of potential buyers from all regions of the country may have been happy to have bought from you, and even made an advance payment, and even would wait for2-3 days when they will have a long-awaited purchase, but there is still some distrust, because full of "shop-throwing" prefer to go to a local store and buy there, albeit more expensive, but safer.
And how to be!? And then a time-tested bike comes to the rescue!
Regular on-line certification provided by large, time-tested players. The meaning of certification lies in the fact that a certain large company requires documentation from the online store company for verification, and after that it gives you a clear conscience to the site with the information that “yes, you are really proven, a shop with all the cakes in official bodies. " For ourselves, we chose a ready-made solution VeriSign Trust Seal, which, in addition to checking, also promises to check the site for all sorts of "viruses" (I can not vouch that they check, but write that they checked and there are no problems, although I have never seen a reputable site was malware.) Perhaps it is not the cheapest, simple solution for Russia, but we have chosen for ourselves in terms of price / authority / service. As a result, we were asked to:
We sent, we wait, it takes 5 days (instead of the promised 2 workers), but oh well, maybe we are from Russia, therefore, but still decided to unsubscribe. And then it began - this time the guys asked us to confirm the phones (stupidity at first glance - they are on the site!) - for this we had to provide either an invoice from the provider for our company, or a link to the “yellow pages”. It is clear that it is easier to register on the "yellow pages" - have registered, sent.
They waited another 2 days, after which a request came to clarify the documents - another document was needed:
Sent, waited 5 more working days and, hooray, our long-awaited certificate. By the way, one more small note, the domain must be registered exactly on the legal entity. The person to whom this certificate is issued (which also added switchings to us).
As a result, we can now honestly show and declare to everyone with a clear conscience that we are real, proven, and we can work with us in general - “we have a certificate”.
Unfortunately, nowhere have we met with methods of counteracting various types of counteraction to situations that happened to us, so we probably are the first (at least nowhere to find shops with similar certificates in runet) who came to this procedure. If our experience will help someone in the future - we will only be happy!
The author of the article is not me, so if you have any questions please contact here - Kazbek Tleuzhev kazbek@dastore.ru
Prologue
For a start, a little background is - at the end of last year we launched quite a niche online store selling professional photo / video / audio equipment. Because this market is rather small and already occupied by rather large players, and even the crisis has not ended - you have to do everything at its best in order to start, and this is not only a beautiful picture (more on that later), but also content. As a result, it was decided to hire specialists who would make a beautiful functional picture, but also because we are making a store from scratch that also attracts competent specialists who will build a company policy from the very beginning and a policy to work with customers at the highest level - as a result, we found such specialists abroad. All done, opened, started working, gaining audience, good reviews, loyal customers and here you! They stole the design and opened and opened the "left" store ...
Outset
One of the buyers told our managers that there is exactly the same online store as us and is it not at all? Of course, it became interesting to us and in general, at first we took everything as a joke, even if it was stupid.
 |  |
| Shop dastore.ru | Shop dicont.ru (now blocked, but rucell.ru appeared) |
Well, they copied the template, well, they made a shop, well, they took photos from a photo shoot - sometimes it happens now, you won't be surprised by anyone like that. It is clear that the idea, design, corporate identity, even the logo is brazenly stolen, but like any clone - it is always worse than the original. Naturally, first of all, they sent an official request to the owners of the store to stop this goddamned rudeness, only in a decent official form, of course.
Do you think it gave any results? Hmm, yes of course not!
But this turned out to be only the beginning of the whole story, unfortunately after a while we started to report about not flattering responses to our address, which began to appear on the Internet, moreover, information about cases of fraud by the store administration (such as a one-day shop and etc.).
')
And here we did not have fun at all!
Not only did they drastically increase their corporate identity, they also openly spoil their reputation - this is not a big problem for an old well-known large store, it is solved by itself over time, but if you recently opened, you have a narrow professional audience (and the equipment which we sell costs like any professional equipment), which will not work with a store to which there is no trust and we understood this very clearly.
What to do in a similar situation?
And here our western friends, already friends, helped us. The fact is that abroad, the problem of competition, as you understand, between online stores is much sharper, and often the price of goods alone is not enough to start buying from you, along with the price is the same:
- The most complete description of the product, ideally with detailed video instruction and review
- Convenient simple, accessible to everyone interface
- Certified Product
- Delivery (this is still a problem in Russia, so part of the problem can be solved by issuing points (here you can give a link to the company that makes the issue))
- The trust
If at all points most of the old and good new stores are not something that does not lag behind, and sometimes even a head taller, then we somehow don’t pay attention to trust, but this is a big mistake, because A lot of potential buyers from all regions of the country may have been happy to have bought from you, and even made an advance payment, and even would wait for
And how to be!? And then a time-tested bike comes to the rescue!
Regular on-line certification provided by large, time-tested players. The meaning of certification lies in the fact that a certain large company requires documentation from the online store company for verification, and after that it gives you a clear conscience to the site with the information that “yes, you are really proven, a shop with all the cakes in official bodies. " For ourselves, we chose a ready-made solution VeriSign Trust Seal, which, in addition to checking, also promises to check the site for all sorts of "viruses" (I can not vouch that they check, but write that they checked and there are no problems, although I have never seen a reputable site was malware.) Perhaps it is not the cheapest, simple solution for Russia, but we have chosen for ourselves in terms of price / authority / service. As a result, we were asked to:
- $ 300 per year subscription
- Certificate of registration of legal entities
- Certificate of registration
- Extract from UGRL
- Scan of the first pages of the charter
We sent, we wait, it takes 5 days (instead of the promised 2 workers), but oh well, maybe we are from Russia, therefore, but still decided to unsubscribe. And then it began - this time the guys asked us to confirm the phones (stupidity at first glance - they are on the site!) - for this we had to provide either an invoice from the provider for our company, or a link to the “yellow pages”. It is clear that it is easier to register on the "yellow pages" - have registered, sent.
They waited another 2 days, after which a request came to clarify the documents - another document was needed:
- Certificate of registration in the Unified State Register of Legal. persons
Sent, waited 5 more working days and, hooray, our long-awaited certificate. By the way, one more small note, the domain must be registered exactly on the legal entity. The person to whom this certificate is issued (which also added switchings to us).
As a result, we can now honestly show and declare to everyone with a clear conscience that we are real, proven, and we can work with us in general - “we have a certificate”.
Unfortunately, nowhere have we met with methods of counteracting various types of counteraction to situations that happened to us, so we probably are the first (at least nowhere to find shops with similar certificates in runet) who came to this procedure. If our experience will help someone in the future - we will only be happy!
The author of the article is not me, so if you have any questions please contact here - Kazbek Tleuzhev kazbek@dastore.ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/102445/
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