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AliExpress hit for selling counterfeit goods in Korea
Korean actor Ma Dong-seok is seen in an AliExpress ad promoting its anniversary sale event in March. Courtesy of AliExpress
By Ko Dong-hwan
Ray Jang, head of AliExpress Korea, speaks during an audit questioning by the National Assembly's National Policy Committee, Monday. Yonhap
AliExpress, China's e-commerce platform for consumers outside the mainland, is under criticism for making counterfeit goods available to consumers in Korea, according to a lawmaker and industry officials, Tuesday. The subsidiary of Alibaba Group that runs the largest e-commerce platform in China has become a target of such criticism at the National Assembly, Monday.
Rep. Kang Min-kuk of the ruling People Power Party, who is on the National Assembly's National Policy Committee, questioned Ray Jang, head of AliExpress Korea, during an audit in Yeouido, Seoul, regarding the platform's problems. The questioning came after the Chinese platform opened its first customer center in Korea in November 2022 and saw its local customers in Korea surpassing 5 million in number last August. Despite its growing presence in Korea, the counterfeit issue persisted.
When asked by Rep. Kang whether he knows about the problem, Jang downplayed it, saying only 0.015 percent of grievance reports made by customers in Korea are about counterfeit goods.
Jang added that AliExpress has measures against counterfeit goods including a system to inspect sellers, AI-based counterfeit screening and punishment for sellers who violate intellectual property laws.
According to Rep. Kang during the questioning, AliExpress sold Korean sportswear maker BlackYak's padded coats for 10,000 won ($7.40) each. Considering the coat's original price ranges from 89,000 won to 300,000 won, the ones sold through AliExpress were undoubtedly counterfeits made in China.
AliExpress was even selling mock-up badges for Korean lawmakers at 15,000 won, the lawmaker said. "This could be abused for criminal purposes," Kang said.
Previous cases of counterfeit goods for sale through AliExpress also include the Air Jordan 1 Retro Low, a sneaker originally priced between 2 million won and 3 million won, available for 70,000 won to 80,000 won, and 500,000 won-priced Wooyoungmi T-shirts sold for 18,000 won.
"This counterfeit sales practices of AliExpress don't just smear our domestic brands and products with degraded value but also destroy consumers' trust in made-in-Korea products. It also violates Korea's Act on the Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce," Kang said.
Jang said his company will introduce further measures to stop the problem and invest more in protecting intellectual properties.
Debuting in the Korean consumer market in 2018, AliExpress last year attracted almost 27 percent of local Korean consumers shopping in foreign e-commerce markets. That's the highest figure as a single e-commerce platform. It was followed by Taobao, another Chinese e-commerce platform, Amazon and Korea's Coupang and Naver.