All you need to know about Ruten

 

 

e-Commerce is booming in Asia. With steadily growing revenues that are predicted to reach $6,478 billion by 2025, the sector holds a lot of potential for sellers and marketplaces alike. No wonder that Asian online marketplaces are successful well beyond the borders of their continent, which makes it necessary for brands from all over the world to be at least aware of them.

 

There are well-known platforms like AliExpress, Tokopedia and Shopee. But have you ever heard of Ruten?

 

 

Founded in 2006, Ruten is one of Taiwan’s biggest online marketplaces. With powerful companies like eBay and PChome Online behind it, Ruten’s quick rise to success comes as a surprise to noone.

 

Today, Ruten has over 11 million members and about 14 million monthly visitors. It’s currently ranked as the third most popular marketplace in Taiwanese e-Commerce behind Shopee and Momoshop. With around 220 employees working for the company in Taipei, Ruten realizes about $6 million in revenue.

 

Screenshot of the homepage of ruten.com.tw

 

 

Similarly to eBay, Ruten allows both professional merchants and consumers to create product listings and sell items, which makes it a hybrid B2C and C2C platform. Shoppers can participate in auctions on the site or buy fixed-price items.

 

Products in many categories are available on Ruten, including electronics, furniture, fashion, books, toys, gardening equipment and even groceries. There are several payment options customers can make use of, including credit cards, eWallets and cash payments upon delivery or collection.

 

The display uses the well-known tile format successfully used on other big e-Commerce platforms in Asia, like Shopee and Joom, which makes it easy for shoppers to browse product listings. Another handy feature is the list of filters on the left hand side of the screen, which allow users to narrow their search according to various criteria like seller location and featured discounts.

 

Screenshot of ruten.com.tw displaying listings from a random product category, translated into English by Google Translate

 

 

Thanks to the close cooperation with eBay and South Korean Gmarket, products from Ruten can be shipped to several countries worldwide, including the US, Korea and Japan.

 

 

While this sounds quite exciting for brands wanting to expand to South-east Asia, there are several pitfalls to be considered when it comes to Ruten, regardless if you want your brand to be officially represented there.

 

The emphasis here lies on officially. Because whatever you may want, fraudsters have a mind of their own and may already offer your products, or fake versions of it, on Ruten.

 

 

Ruten, like many other Asian marketplaces, faces a significant counterfeiting problem. Given the nature of this marketplace (C2C as well as C2B), and how easy it is to sign up (provided you live in Taiwan, China or Macau), it’s no wonder that fraudsters can invade the platform.

 

Screenshot of member.ruten.com.tw showing the sign-up options, translated by Google Translate

 

 

The evidence of their presence, suspiciously cheap listings of well-known products, is easily found on Ruten. For instance, take a look at this Audi keychain.

 

Screenshot of an Audi keychain listing on ruten.com.tw

 

 

It costs $180 in Taiwanese dollars, which is currently worth around 5.14 euros. Now, here’s a similar Audi keychain available on Amazon.de.

 

Screenshot of an Audi keychain listing on amazon.de

 

 

Although just from the listing alone we can’t say with 100% certainty whether the Ruten version is a genuine, counterfeit or lookalike product, the significant price difference is definitely a sign that we may be dealing with fraud here.

 

Similarly, you can find premium sneakers at unbelievably good prices on Ruten. Here’s an adidas running shoe that costs over a hundred euros in Europe - available for roughly 49 euros on Ruten.

 

Screenshot of an sneaker listing on adidas.be	Screenshot of a sneaker listing on ruten.com.tw

 

We could go on but you get the gist. Whether it’s a counterfeit, lookalike, or grey market product, fraudulent sellers on Ruten cause your brand significant damage in revenue and reputation.

 

Another problem on Ruten is the lack of information about the sellers. If you try to find out who is selling this sneaker, all you’ll find is their shop’s nickname (I love you 99) as well as their promo texts. Not very informative, especially if you want to get them to stop counterfeiting your brand’s products. Although Ruten’s procedures for verifying its sellers are not advertised, there don’t seem to be a lot of requirements for publicly displaying their basic information.

 

Luckily, there’s something you can do about it.

 

 

globaleyez’s comprehensive and highly tailorable solutions ensure that IP infringements against your brand’s rights are quickly detected on Ruten, and on over 150 other online marketplaces worldwide.

 

Our marketplace monitoring service discovers potentially problematic product listings on Ruten, and extensive filtering options allow us to separate authorized sellers from fraudsters.

 

Since counterfeiters often advertise with pictures elsewhere on the internet, we recommend a round of image monitoring as a complementary service to pick up on any unauthorized, IP infringing images. Similarly, sessions of social media and domain monitoring respectively ensure we discover and remove any ads on social media and infringing domains the fraudsters may use to entice new customers.

 

Once the fraudulent listings are identified, we can enforce your rights and arrange for their removal from Ruten. As with many other marketplaces, we work closely with Ruten to ensure a fast and efficient takedown, which in Ruten’s case usually takes a maximum of two working days.

 

If you want to learn more about the seller (which is a great idea to prevent the appearance of further infringing listings by the same fraudster), we recommend our test purchase service. Even though Ruten doesn’t provide a lot of information on its sellers upfront, a test purchase and the documents it generates enables us to learn a lot about the origins of the product and the seller.

 

 

Ruten is a useful marketplace for brands that want to establish a presence in Taiwan. With the aid of a strong, comprehensive online brand protection programme, you can ensure to enjoy all the benefits of Ruten without any of the dangerous side effects caused by IP infringements.

 

Contact us and let’s devise an online brand protection plan for your brand