Alibaba is spending heavy amount of money to remove fakes from its online marketplaces.
On several previous occasions, Jack Ma’s e-commerce empire Alibaba Group Holding was accused of counterfeiting goods on a couple of its online marketplaces. This was noted by the luxury brand owners who filed a complaint against the e-commerce giant to the US Trade Group. On numerous close instances, Alibaba saved itself from entering the blacklist of the US Trade Group from which the company’s two online platforms, Alibaba.com and Taobao Marketplace, just freed. The problem of fake goods has become a major problem for the company in the past four to five years.
The Chinese e-commerce organization was under fire from western brand owners over fakes on its online marketplaces, but the founder and chairman of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, said recently that his company is working and will leave nothing to get rid of counterfeit goods on its platforms. A Chinese online news website first reported the speech of the founder and chairman of the firm on Monday and on Tuesday it was obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
Jack Ma and his company have been fighting fakery for more than a year now and according to him, it is a difficult task to eliminate counterfeiting online. At this point, it is essential for the company to focus on it. The image of Alibaba, China, and the Chinese e-commerce market would be affected among investors and luxury brand owners of the West.
Mr. Ma added, “For so many years, we have been using traditional methods and measures to fight fakes, but the harder we fight, the more pop up. Now is the time to let Internet companies to have a try… and solve the issue with big data technology.”
Alibaba Group is known for several amazing feats of which the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) holder in the US market is one of them. The online retailer raised a massive $25 billion from investors in its IPO in 2014. It reportedly employed a massive 2,000 workforce who works full time to eliminate counterfeit from the platforms. In 2015, it invested nearly $154 million (1 billion Yuan) over two years to battle fake goods.
For a long time, the Chinese e-commerce industry has been alleged to have counterfeit goods on their platforms. Not only the companies but also China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce, also known as SAIC, is working to eliminate fakery from the industry. Western luxury brands that came forward and sued the e-retailer include Balenciaga, Gucci, and Yves Saint Laurent.
“Just rooting out counterfeits from Alibaba’s platforms is not being responsible to consumers. To be really responsible, (the industry) needs to fight them to the extent that they can’t survive on WeChat and JD. We need to fight them so they will have no distribution channels, no means to produce, and that they will be tracked down,” said Jack Ma.
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