Complaints against China’s AliExpress soar in S. Korea

Complaints filed against AliExpress, the e-commerce retail platform of China's Alibaba Group, in South Korea quintupled in 2023 from a year earlier, a local consumers' association said Thursday. The number of complaints submitted to the Consumers Union of Korea (CUK) and the 1372 call center operated by the Korea Fair Trade Commission against AliExpress jumped five times to 465 last year from 93 a year ago, the CUK said in a statement. In December alone, the number of complaints reached 150, about one-third of the annual figure. Major complaints were about late or missed deliveries, misdeliveries, lack of products, no reflection of order cancellations following delivery delays, and lack of tracking information on the delivery path and time. "The government needs to generate new rules to prevent damage to consumers from unfair market practices by multinational companies like AliExpress and respond to such damage," a CUK official said. In the January-September period, the country's overall overseas direct purchases through online platforms reached 4.79 trillion won. Purchases from China accounted for 2.22 trillion won, or 46 percent, the statement said. Alibaba focuses on business-to-business transactions, while AliExpress is mainly a business-to-consumer marketplace. Source: Yonhap News Agency