How to Buy Non-Original Oil?

This question has been bothering thousands of buyers across the former Soviet space for a long time now. It's no secret that the best-known brands have started running into serious trouble because of a flood of counterfeits on the market. There are a great many middlemen between the distributor and the end consumer (dealers, wholesalers, shops), and that's exactly what makes the path a product takes to reach a store shelf so opaque.

Not long ago I was approached by a company that had launched the project www.pitstop.ru. Together we decided to run a kind of experiment — to create a space on the site's forum for feedback and dialogue with car owners.

What matters to the consumer here is that this isn't just an online shop for car consumables — it's the retail arm of a direct importer and distributor of many brands. That means the chance of buying a fake here is ruled out, since when you buy engine oil at the www.pitstop.ru shop, you're essentially buying it from the direct importer.

The shop carries oils, filters, brake discs and pads, spark plugs — basically everything car owners replace every 10,000-15,000 km. As distributors of many brands, they feel consumer sentiment more than anyone, which is exactly why they decided to build an online shop that delivers goods from their own warehouse straight to the buyer's door. That way the customer gets 100% non-original engine oil and other consumables for their car, and can confidently draw on real experience of using these brands.

www.pitstop.ru is aiming to become the best resource for car consumables, and in my opinion is getting there quite successfully. On the company's site you can find photos of the warehouse and copies of product certificates, get advice on choosing “consumables,” arrange free delivery within Moscow even for something as small as 1 litre of oil, and they're constantly running promotions to build interest in the project.

As part of the experiment, the people behind www.pitstop.ru asked me to find out from you what information you'd like to see on their site to be sure the products on offer are genuine, and they guarantee answers to your questions in a dedicated forum thread.

Please post your feedback, questions, suggestions and wishes in the relevant topic on the forum:

http://forum.avtomaslo.info/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=357