Having condemned foreign companies, including multinationals like Apple Inc. and McDonald's Corp. during the past, China's state broadcaster has now targeted Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., to increase pressure on the native e-commerce giant to deal with fraudulent sales on its various shopping platforms.
On the China's annual consumer rights day on March 15, the powerful state TV aired a show targeting all online food delivery apps, and phony online sales. Somewhat comparable to the CBS network's "60 Minutes" in the United States, earlier the show named and shamed various foreign multinationals, often leaving the global corporations as well as their media teams scrambling to respond to allegations, Channel News Asia reported via Reuters.
During the two-hour show broadcast during a prime-time broadcast, China Central Television alleged that faking orders, known as "brushing," in China, is widespread on Taobao, the largest shopping platform of Alibaba. According to the broadcaster, this unholy practice involves sellers paying people to place phony orders, thereby padding the sales figures of vendors with a view to boosting their status on online marketplaces.
An Alibaba spokesman said While the problem has been plaguing e-commerce sites worldwide, Alibaba "is continually upgrading our technology to better detect and identify these practices," Wall Street Journal quoted a spokesman of Alibaba as saying.
Interestingly enough, the CCTV report was broadcast at a crucial time when Alibaba is also facing widespread criticism from a number of Western brands that the Chinese e-commerce portal is not initiating any step to curb bogus goods on its platforms. Recently, Alibaba co-founder, Jack Ma, assured several Alibaba employees that they would do everything to do away with such counterfeits.
Meanwhile, industry watchers are of the view that the allegations regarding the fraudulent fake sales figures may even result in questioning the actual volume of business on Alibaba's platforms. In fact, the Chinese e-commerce company has been declared as the largest e-commerce platform globally. Contrary to this, Alibaba asserted that the company employs sophisticated tools to discover as well as eliminate phony transactions from its financials.
