BEIJING, September 17 (TMTPOST) — Amazon had terminated cooperation with 600 Chinese brands in the past five months because of fake reviews, said Cindy Tai, VP of Amazon Global Selling Asia. It is said that over 3,000 accounts had been involved in the crackdown and some of the brands also engaged in bribery. 

Regardless of the crackdown, Chinese businesses had secured stable sales growth in the past year, Tai stated. There are tens of thousands of businesses in China that use Amazon’s platform for e-commerce business.

“The crackdown is a global operation,” Tai said during an interview with the media, stating that the crackdown was not aimed at Chinese vendors only.

“Our policy is consistent across the globe. Where the vendors operate does not affect our policy,” Tai explained. “We cannot predict where the fake reviews come from. We do not target vendors based on their location or scale. We only target their actions.”

Groups of Chinese vendors on Amazon’s platform had been recently banned as the crackdown operation expands. Their products had also been removed from the platform by Amazon.

Amazon had performed similar crackdown operations before, with the current one started in late April this year. Major brands such as Patuoxun, Aukey, and Zebao were affected by the crackdown. Patuoxun, a major user of Amazon’s platform, for example, achieved a sales volume of RMB2 billion in the first half of 2020.

“Many vendors had been manufacturing fake reviews repeatedly. There had also been other forms of violation on the platform as well,” Tai said. “We are hoping to provide our consumers with the most authentic and accurate reviews to help them make informed purchase decisions.”

Chinese vendors are a major group on Amazon’s global selling platform. Although Amazon did not target Chinese vendors specifically, a large number of vendors in China had been hit. Consumer electronics brands in Shenzhen are most affected in the crackdown.