ALIEXPRESS is an online retail service based in China which offers a wide range of different products.
It is comprised of smaller business and retailers, in China, Singapore and several other countries, who sell to an international market.
World-wide company
The company is owned by Chinese multinational the Alibaba Group, which primarily focuses on computing and e-commerce.
AliExpress trades to international import buyers and does not trade within china.
In China, the Alibaba Group instead trades via a subsidiary named Taobao.
AliExpress was launched in 2010 and started off as a business-to-business portal, which has expanded to offer business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer sales.
It has websites in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Russian and Indonesian.
Questions over counterfeit goods
AliExpress is a legitimate business, but only has a Trustpilot score of 2.8 (as of October 2-24).
The brand has ran in to trouble when a report suggested there were concerns of counterfeit goods on AliExpress.
The report read: “Existing data shows a correlation between the use of forced labour and child labour in the global production of certain products and the types of products that are most commonly counterfeited.”
In response, Ambassador Katherine Tai added: “This illicit trade also increases the vulnerability of workers involved in the manufacturing of counterfeit goods to exploitative labor practices.
“Counterfeit goods can pose significant risks to the health and safety of consumers and workers around the world.”
AliExpress responded to the claims and said: “AliExpress is committed to protecting intellectual property rights and prohibits our merchants from listing items that infringe upon the IP rights of third parties, and has in place measures to combat counterfeits.
“Rights owners may contact our platform and submit their claims through our Intellectual Property Protection Platform to report cases of infringement.
“Sellers found to be in breach will be penalised according to our platform policies, which may involve fines, suspension or termination.”
AliExpress’ products
AliExpress sells thousands of discounted products, which allow users to buy more of the clothes that they love.
However, some users have claimed that they have received products that look very different to the ones that they originally ordered.
One Instagram user, whose handle is @itsleaux_, ordered an engagement dress from the site but she described her order as a “fail”.
She had ordered a fitted gown with blue tuelle but received a pink dress in the most.
The online store says it does allow full refunds for products that arrive late or are damaged though.
