The logo of Alibaba Group is seen inside the company's headquarters in Hangzhou nike cortez ultra moire schweiz , Zhejiang province early November 11, 2014. Criticized and even sued by luxury brand Gucci and others for facilitating the counterfeit goods trade, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has been quietly piloting a scheme to try to curb fakes at source.
In the coastal city of Putian, in Fujian province, Alibaba is working with 17 shoe manufacturers to cultivate home-grown brands online, revitalize a flagging industry and offer would-be counterfeiters an alternative source of livelihood.
Critics say the scheme is misguided and Alibaba should instead focus on scrubbing its online marketplaces of widespread listings of fakes.
But the "Made in China" plan speaks to what proponents say is one of the reasons why there's been only limited progress in the battle against fake goods in China: a lack of attractive alternatives for those making and hawking goods that infringe on others' intellectual property rights.
"You can crack down forever and never see an end to it nike cortez schweiz ," said Song Zonghu, who once peddled counterfeit name-brand sneakers and now runs Shuangwei Sporting Goods Co Ltd, one of the firms in the Alibaba program. "Creating new opportunities while cracking down is the way to go. Everybody has to eat."
Ni Liang, Alibaba's senior director of Internet security, says the scheme is a key anti-counterfeit initiative this year. The group plans to expand it to household electronics, toys nike vapormax blau schweiz , bags and other industries, hoping that by building local brands, small manufacturers will turn away from fakes and serve a legitimate sector.
LOGISTICS HUB
Putian is the epicenter of China's high-quality fake sneaker business, a byproduct of a legitimate footwear industry that employs a tenth of the city's 3 million people. Copies of Nike, Adidas, New Balance and other brand-name shoes made here are hard to distinguish from the real deal nike vapormax herren schweiz , but sell for a fraction of the price.
The municipal government has cracked down on fakes, arresting 156 people and confiscating about 2 million pairs of counterfeit footwear since 2014, said Wu Haiduan, director of the Putian e-commerce office. He declined to give an estimate of the overall size of the industry, but a grid of Putian's sleepy daytime streets near government offices comes alive at night, offering hints as to the scale of the issue.
Hundreds of scooters ferry shoes as runners duck in and out of off-brand storefronts or apartment blocks to fetch more boxes. Sellers check each shoe for blemishes nike vapormax damen schweiz , wielding scissors or cigarette lighters to eliminate stray threads and pencil erasers to clean the foam midsoles. Fake certificates and phony credit card receipts are tucked in with the shoes.
Dozens of curbside courier services then wrap and stack the boxes ready to be trucked out by daybreak.
SALES BUMP
Alibaba has trained the shoe manufacturers in online business, helped on quality control and marketing, and run sales promotions. In one 3-day campaign, the shoe brands sold over 4 million pairs - or two every three seconds - worth 480 million yuan ($77.5 million), said Alibaba spokeswoman Crystal Liu. ://www.cheapnhlsportsjerseysonline.com/]Cheap NHL Jerseys From China[/url] Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys From ChinaCheap Youth College JerseysWholesale MLB Jerseys From China