Online discount retailer accused of selling fake Gucci belts

Chinese online discount retailer Vipshop recently became ensnared in controversy after customers accused the company of selling fake Gucci belts.

Although Vipshop claimed that the belts were authenticated by a third company as genuine, the goods were marked as fake by other platforms and companies, sparking public concern about other goods sold on the platform.

The controversy came to light after some media recently reported a consumer surnamed Guo from Shandong province purchased a Gucci belt on Vipshop in March. The belt, originally priced at 4,300 yuan ($656), was sold at 2,948 yuan and labeled as "100 percent genuine".

After receiving the belt, Guo found he had wrongly measured his waist, so he tried to resell it via resale platform Dewu. However, after commissioning a third-party appraisal agency, the platform told Guo that the belt was counterfeit and could not be sold as a second-hand product.

Followed by Guo's case, a number of consumers who purchased the same batch of the belts said their purchases were also determined to be fake by third-party agencies.

A consumer surnamed Chen from Hunan province told China Media Group that he felt reassured when he read labels including "direct global sourcing", "100 percent genuine" and "insured by the People's Insurance Company of China" on the product page. But he found many flaws in the belt after receiving it, including unclear printing and rough workmanship, so he sent the belt to an appraisal agency and the result showed it was a fake.

In response to the controversy, Vipshop released a statement on April 7, saying it has verified that the batch of Gucci belts were sourced directly from overseas. The purchase chain was clear, reliable and legal, and the goods were guaranteed to be authentic.

The statement also said the goods were sampled and authenticated by the China Certification & Inspection Company, and each Gucci belt came with an anti-counterfeiting buckle.

Dewu also released a statement on April 7 saying it had reviewed the authentication results of the belts by four third-party agencies, and the results showed that all the belts were fake. The results were based on differences found in texture of the metal buckle, the embroidered label and the embossed letters.

On April 8, a spokesperson from Gucci told media outlet Red Star News that Gucci will neither authenticate the belts nor comment on their authenticity, but noted that Vipshop is not an authorized seller of Gucci products.

The authenticity of the belts remain officially undetermined, raising widespread doubts among consumers who buy discount goods on Vipshop platform.

Zhao Zhanling, a lawyer from Beijing Yunjia Law Firm, told China Media Group that not all third-party test results can be used as legal evidence; in many cases, they can only serve as a reference.

Apart from Gucci offering to authenticate the goods itself, the matter can only be settled when both Vipshop and Dewu commission an mutually recognized agency to do so, Zhao said.