Protection of electronics brands from grey imports on marketplaces

Why grey imports have become a problem for electronics brands

Marketplaces have significantly transformed the electronics market. For brands, they have become one of the primary sales channels, but also a source of new risks, the most prominent of which is the rise of gray imports.

Today, smartphones, headphones, gaming consoles, consumer electronics, and accessories are increasingly appearing on marketplaces outside of official distribution channels. These products may be genuine, but they enter the market through unauthorized supply chains without the consent of the trademark owner or the official sales network.

At first glance, gray imports may seem like standard competition. However, for manufacturers and brand owners, the problem goes much deeper. It involves a loss of control over pricing, user experience, warranty policies, and brand reputation. The situation is particularly sensitive for companies operating with extensive dealer networks, recommended retail prices, and regional sales restrictions.

What is considered gray import in the electronics category

Grey import is not the same as counterfeit. In most cases, it refers to original products that are imported and sold bypassing official distribution channels. For example, a seller purchases devices in another country where the price is lower and lists them on a marketplace without the involvement of an official distributor. To the buyer, the product may look identical to the original, but differences become noticeable after the purchase.

Devices may differ in regional firmware, lack of local certification, incompatibility of certain functions, or limitations in service and warranty support. As a result, a negative user experience is often associated with the brand rather than the seller. For companies, this creates a situation where the brand incurs reputational costs without controlling the sales channel itself.

Before the growth of e-commerce, grey imports were more limited: sales were concentrated in individual stores or small chains. Today, marketplaces have significantly simplified the scaling of such supplies. Unauthorized sellers quickly duplicate and post product listings, change names, and operate simultaneously on several platforms. The same gadget can be sold by dozens of sellers at different prices, creating a sense of a chaotic market for the buyer.

For a brand, this entails several risks. First, price positioning is diluted. When the same model is sold with a significant price spread, the official channel begins to lose out not only in terms of cost but also in the perception of the product's value.

Second, conflicts arise with the official dealer network. Partners expect transparent competitive conditions, and the presence of unauthorized sellers reduces the motivation to invest in promotion and service.

Third, the burden on brand support increases. Customers reach out with questions about warranty, setup, and service even in cases where the device was purchased outside the official supply chain.

What the problem looks like in practice

The scale of the problem is well illustrated by monitoring the Dreame brand across Russian marketplaces from March to June 2026.

During this period, 3,529 product listings from 712 sellers were identified. The highest number of listings was recorded in May, with 1,348 listings from 372 sellers. In March, 1,047 listings from 175 sellers were identified, while in June, the figure was 1,134 listings from 274 sellers.

The distribution of identified listings across marketplaces also varied from month to month:

March: Ozon — 496 listings, Wildberries — 285, Yandex Market — 266;

May: Ozon — 640, Wildberries — 252, Yandex Market — 456;

June: Ozon — 905, Yandex Market — 226, Wildberries — 3.

However, not every identified listing ultimately provides grounds for filing a complaint. Following additional verification, complaints were filed against 302 sellers covering 2,371 listings out of the 3,529 identified listings. The remaining cases were filtered out during the verification stage.

Further processing showed that systematic enforcement can produce significant results. Of the 423 Dreame listings on Ozon in one of the seller clusters, 404 were removed within just four days — 95.5% of the total.

Significant changes were also recorded across other marketplaces and seller groups:

Ozon (Jingxiang): 404 out of 423 listings removed — 95.5%;

Ozon (main group): 684 out of 1,070 listings removed — 64%;

Wildberries: 192 listings removed and another 50 taken out of search results — 242 out of 278 in total, or approximately 87%;

Yandex Market: 506 out of 600 listings removed — approximately 84%.

Overall, violations were eliminated for approximately 78–80% of the listings covered by complaints.

At the same time, the problem does not end when a particular listing is removed. Some sellers return to the marketplaces and post new listings. In the main Dreame group, 19 out of 73 sellers returned after being blocked — 26% — posting a total of 209 new listings. In the Jingxiang group, 6 out of 229 sellers returned — 2.6% — posting 12 new listings.

This is why it is important for brands to track not only the removal of individual listings but also the reappearance of violations. With automated monitoring, a system can retain information about previously blocked sellers and immediately flag a new listing as a repeat violation when it appears.

These figures demonstrate that grey imports on marketplaces are not an isolated issue but a systemic one: the number of listings changes from month to month, sellers reappear, and the same brand can face violations across multiple platforms simultaneously.

Why manual control no longer works

Many brands try to track the problem manually—through product searches on marketplaces or periodic seller checks. But in the electronics category, this approach quickly stops working. The electronics range is constantly updated, sellers use different model names, create new listings, and quickly change accounts. Even a single product line can be present in hundreds of offers simultaneously.

The Dreame example shows the scale of the task: over several months of monitoring, thousands of listings and hundreds of sellers on different platforms had to be analyzed. At the same time, after removing some offers, it is necessary to continue observation, as individual sellers return with new listings.

With a large-scale assortment, manual monitoring turns into an endless process that does not allow for timely detection of violations and response to changes. The problem is further complicated by the speed of distribution. While a brand analyzes one case, similar offers can appear on several platforms at once.

An effective protection strategy is usually built around constant monitoring and transparency of sales channels. Companies increasingly track the presence of goods on marketplaces: they analyze sellers, prices, product origin, recurring violations, and deviations from the agreed distribution model.

It is especially important to quickly identify unauthorized sellers, record signs of violations, and assess the scale of product distribution. Without systematic monitoring, it is difficult for a brand to understand exactly where the problem begins and how much it affects the market.

In addition, modern automated control tools help analyze price anomalies, duplicate listings, and suspicious activity, allowing for faster responses to distribution policy violations.

Gray import is a matter of brand control

For electronics manufacturers, gray imports have long ceased to be just a matter of logistics or unofficial supplies. In the context of marketplaces, it is a matter of control over the brand, price, customer experience, and reputation.

The Dreame case shows how massive the task can be: 3,529 identified listings from 712 sellers over several months, more than 2,300 listings against which complaints were filed, and dozens of sellers who tried to return to the platforms after being blocked.

At the same time, a significant portion of the offers was eliminated following systematic work with complaints, and repeat violations can be tracked automatically. This allows for a shift from one-off checks to continuous market monitoring.

The more popular a device, the higher the likelihood of unauthorized sales channels appearing. If a company does not monitor the market systematically, the problem quickly begins to affect brand perception and relationships with official partners. Therefore, protection against gray imports today is not a one-time marketplace audit, but ongoing work with data, sellers, and distribution channels.