Pinduoduo under fire for hosting counterfeit goods

Svmsung TVs and Vivi smartphones are listed at the top of their sections

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Products named Vivi and SHAASUNG are common on Pinduoduo. (Pictures: Pinduoduo)

Published: 7:39pm, 31 Jul 2018Updated: 3:54pm, 21 Oct 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

In its IPO prospectus, three-year-old shopping app Pinduoduo describes itself as “a combination of Costco and Disneyland”, because it combines “value-for-money and entertainment”.

It grew quickly by encouraging people to start group purchases either in the app or on WeChat to get a deep discount. As of March 2018, Pinduoduo had accumulated 295 million active users, almost as many as the 302 million users of JD.com -- China’s second biggest shopping site.

But lately, it’s been under fire for hosting counterfeit goods on its platform -- angering companies whose products are being copied. State broadcaster CCTV published a piece naming and shaming Pinduoduo, warning that “not selling fake products is the bottom line”.

Skyworth, one of China’s biggest TV makers, blasted Pinduoduo on Weibo for hosting fake products, saying that it has asked the app to remove all products that contain “Skyworth” in their names (but are not actually Skyworth products).

Zheng Yuanjie, an acclaimed author of children’s books, also asked Pinduoduo to shut down a merchant selling pirated version of his books.