JD.com probing vendor's phony products

Online direct sales companies face a bumpy road in transforming themselves into e-commerce platforms after a third-party merchant was caught selling fake lubricants on the site of China's second-largest e-commerce company.

ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co Ltd said in a statement on Wednesday that a bottle of automotive lubricant with the company's trademark was purchased on JD.com on June 13. Upon laboratory testing, the product was deemed to be counterfeit.

Beijing-based JD.com responded through its official Weibo account, a Twitter-like micro blog service, that the fake product was sold by a third party on its open platform, which lets vendors sell directly to JD's registered users.