We’ve been quite vocal in the past over image theft of our flower walls (and other hard working companies) on Alibaba – and once again we have found Alibaba sellers posting not just our images, but also claiming they are the original creator of that wall, and that any wall purchased will be the same as the one in the photo – our photo.
Getting the images removed is easy enough, but it is like playing whack a mole. We dedicate time almost daily to trawling Alibaba to see if there is any more image theft, but what we cannot do is make sure the sellers aren’t privately sending customers messages making the same claims.
In previous blog posts, we’ve been polite enough not to embarrass Alibaba traders caught in the act, but on this occasion there was such a blatant theft of our images that we wont be doing that. The company who we spent hours dealing with this week had also previously posted our images and other companies on their Instagram and removed them when we called them out on it. But then we found our images were back on their two (and more) Alibaba sites.
So, Guang Zhou Su Kang Ltd aka DY Artificial aka Frank aka Wendy aka about five other companies – (it is VERY easy to become an Alibaba seller, and the ‘ratings’ mean nothing, be warned!) we are not sparing your blushes any more. Stealing images is one thing, but misrepresenting yourselves and us is a completely different ball game. We admit we get angry that our product is being touted by those who have nothing to do with it, except a goal to hit sales targets through blatant deception.
A quick screen grab of their Alibaba sites before they removed all the images with threat of legal action from ourselves shows that they are using all images from other companies hard work, labor and love. A quick chat to them had them tell us they made the walls themselves, a statement we know is a lie.
None of these images belong to the seller, nor are the walls made by them.
This company wasn’t claiming these were ‘inspo’ images, they were outright telling us they were the creators of this wall and had watermarked them to protect them against being stolen!
Image was taken inside our workshop – note the extra images you could also scroll to, including one of a REAL flower wall
Flower Wall created by our sister company Highlife Asia Weddings back in 2014
The two Instagram profiles of the company who also used images from us and other companies to claim the work as their own.
Alibaba is a wholesaler focused on cheap price and materials in a country that has well publicized struggles with intellectual property rights, copyright infringement and honest business dealings. The companies on Alibaba that sell flower walls will never be able to create the same high quality product as us, because our business model is very different. We aren’t a factory with wholesale goals, we are dedicated to high quality floral backdrops made by a small team with a passion for and background in design. We love seeing our walls in use at weddings, events and shows around the world, and everything we create is crafted in our workshop in Shanghai by the same people who you email, speak to, and who write these blogs. We just don’t do cheap or second rate.
The company above in all its guises isn’t a supplier, affiliate or anything of us, and you can see from their own flower walls images they now have to use, the product is completely different.
Not our taste level nor style, and we do not use these low quality flowers
We have never claimed, or aimed to be cheap. We deliver quality and beauty before price. We know expectations, design and styling of the international market because we are an international team and will never sell on Alibaba nor produce the same low quality items that are available on there.
Not only do we work very hard to maintain a professional website with gorgeous designs and flowers that are unique to us, but we actually love what we do, and you can see that in every flower wall we make, and it’s why our high standards and hustle have got us featured and used in magazines around the globe.
We will continue to check Alibaba every day for our and other companies images, and continue to get them removed, but if it saves one more person from being duped into a low quality product, then it’s worth it to us!
info@theflowerwallcompany.com
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