Chinese beauty retailer to boost counterfeit checks

Online retailer Jumei is to introduce tougher checks on product quality in order to reduce the number of counterfeit goods it sells.

From this month, the Beijing-based company, one of China’s leading internet sellers of cosmetic products, will begin publishing monthly audits of suppliers and third-party merchants and will check a larger sample of goods.

Until now, Jumei has performed random checks every month on 12 percent of third-party merchants, allowing it to identify those that are unable to pass quality checks and terminate their contracts before any products are shipped to customers.

Since June, however, Jumei started expanding the sampling from 12 percent of third-party merchants to more than 67 percent.

The June tests discovered no cases of counterfeiting or other product discrepancies.

Jumei has also sought to raise product quality standards in the Chinese beauty products industry, it claimed. In July 2013, it helped to establish the Authentic Beauty Product Alliance (ABPA), the first nationwide alliance against counterfeit products in the beauty industry. 

The initiative allows customers to trace products to their source on the ABPA website and on websites of participating brands, using tracking codes printed on ABPA stickers. As of March 2014, ABPA had 74 members.

Alongside its new quality controls, Jumei employs other strategies for tackling counterfeit goods. These include educating consumers on how to distinguish fake from genuine beauty products, by posting videos on its website and encouraging users to generate their own content.