Businesses have a headache because of counterfeit goods on e-commerce platforms

Recently, there has been a situation of counterfeit goods being sold on e-commerce platforms. This requires a fundamental solution to handle.

Authorities need to have fundamental solutions to prevent counterfeit goods on e-commerce. Illustration photo: Thu Giang

Counterfeit goods are rampant on e-commerce platforms

Reflecting to Lao Dong Newspaper, a representative of HA Cosmetics Company Limited said that currently, there are many booths on websites. e-commerce such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiktok shop... selling fake products of the company. Including 2 exclusive products: mouse repellent essential oil and lizard repellent essential oil Asa Ratpel.

Mr. Bui Ngoc Hung - Permanent Deputy Director of HA Cosmetics Company Limited said that as of December 2024, through inspection, it was discovered that there were 14 stores on e-commerce platforms selling counterfeit products of the company.

The company has contacted a number of stores directly, asking them to stop selling counterfeit goods, but they have not cooperated, and have even "run advertisements" for counterfeit products as if challenging the law.

The company has sent three official dispatches to e-commerce management companies for support, but has yet to receive a response.

"The act of buying and selling counterfeit goods seriously affects the reputation and image of the company's products. These acts cause misunderstanding and damage to consumers - when they buy fake, poor quality products. The consequences lead to consumers turning their backs on genuine products, causing damage to businesses," said Mr. Hung.

How to manage?

According to the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade), Vietnam is one of the 10 countries with the highest e-commerce growth rate in the world. In 2024, the e-commerce market size will exceed 25 billion USD, an increase of 20% compared to 2023.

However, the number of violations handled regarding counterfeit goods, fake goods, and unfair competition also increased 2.4 times, the amount of fines increased nearly 3 times, of which, about 30,000 individuals doing online business violated tax regulations.

Counterfeit, fake, poor quality goods and unprofessional attitudes of shop owners are probably the "bad experiences" that many online shoppers have encountered when shopping online.

On today's e-commerce platforms, information about sellers is mainly provided by them, from phone numbers, emails to personal documents such as ID cards.

The reliability of this information is very low, because sellers can create fake accounts, borrow documents from relatives to avoid handling measures from the platform or authorities when an incident occurs. This reality has created an unsafe and vulnerable trading environment.

In the draft Decree on tax management for e-commerce businesses, the Ministry of Finance said that there are about 300,000 individuals selling goods on more than 400 platforms, according to data provided by the parties to the tax authorities. The amount of tax this group paid last year was about VND2,500 billion.

In addition to the above number, according to the operator, a large number of business booths on commercial platforms still have not identified sellers. Statistics on the 5 major e-commerce platforms (Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo, Grab) alone show that there are more than 300,000 booths that have not identified users. The estimated business turnover of this group is over 70,000 billion VND.

The Ministry of Finance estimates that with the tax rate that online business households and individuals will pay for these two types of taxes, a total of 1.5% on a total revenue of about 70,000 billion VND, the estimated tax revenue will be about 1,000 billion VND.

However, the tax revenue from these business households and individuals is very low. The tax collected only accounts for about 20% of the revenue scale of this market. According to the Ministry of Finance, this shows that many businesses have not declared and paid taxes according to regulations.

Mr. Nguyen Binh Minh - Head of the Resource Development Department of the Vietnam E-commerce Association said that in the past, to facilitate the development of e-commerce, the management agency and the floors only required sellers to have an email address, declare the store name, and type of goods to be able to trade.

This leads to many people using accounts with "fake" identities to open multiple stores to split orders to avoid taxes, livestream sales without being subject to tax control, or sell fake or poor quality goods...

"Not only will there be a loss of tax revenue, if online sellers are not identified soon, buyers will be suspicious when transacting on the platform, leading to a decrease in e-commerce growth rate," Mr. Minh warned.

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/doanh-nghiep-dau-dau-vi-hang-gia-hang-nhai-tren-san-thuong-mai-dien-tu-3344129.html