Fake goods hurt e-retail

China's e-commerce giants are enthusiastically flooding domestic media with lavish commercials aimed at warming up consumers for the annual online shopping binge on Nov 11. However, they have still not paid enough attention to their Achilles' heel, namely the widespread sale of shoddy or counterfeit goods by online retailers.

According to a report on the implementation of the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Consumers submitted to the National People's Congress Standing Committee, only 58.7 percent of the surveyed items bought online last year were genuine or of good quality, and local commerce authorities received 77,800 complaints concerning online orders, 356 percent more than in the previous year.

But with the country's online sales totaling 2.8 trillion yuan ($442 billion) last year, it has become more than evident that e-commerce has evolved into a major growth engine for both domestic consumption and China's overall economic growth.