NICOLE Hu has used two bottles of a big-name cleanser, but it was not until recently that she realized they were fake ones.

During the weeklong Chinese New Year holiday in late February, Hu, 28, went to South Korea and bought the same product at the airport’s tax-free store in Seoul. When using it, she finds something strange.

“The smell is the same but the texture is obviously different. The real one has tiny grains for exfoliating but what I used before was very smooth,” she says.

Hu bought the fake cleanser through an online shop providing overseas purchasing service in London. About each bottle, she saves 150 yuan (US$24.3) deducting service fee and postage.

She has contacted the shop owner but no reply so far.

This is, actually, not a rare case. Last week, a similar case came to trail in Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province, where a woman surnamed He sold fake luxury products including Chanel, Prada, Louis Vuitton via WeChat and coned totally 110,000 yuan. He, according to Qianjiang Evening News, is facing seven years’ imprisonment at most.

From clothes and accessories to cosmetics, food to medicine, furnishings to infant formula powder, people can buy anything via online shops providing overseas purchasing service.

“Especially for international luxury brands, the price in foreign countries is too alluring. You buy a handbag and a wallet overseas, and if you see their prices in China, it feels like the wallet is a free gift,” Hu tells Shanghai Daily speaking for many consumers.

Also due to the language barrier and difference payment systems, overseas purchasing service become increasingly popular. Taobao.com, the country’s biggest online shopping platform, has over 15 million related items and thousands of shops providing such service. And recently, this service sprouted on social network platform of online messaging app WeChat.

Though most of the products have certificates, receipts and even overseas logistics information, a rising amount of them are, actually, fake.

From product itself to packaging to invoices and postage, there is an evil industrial chain.

Result of a State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) sample test released on January 23 showed that only 37.5 percent of surveyed commodities sold on Taobao were authentic.

On Monday, Zhang Mao, the head of SAIC, called for more regulations and greater oversight of the e-commerce industry because of the challenges posed by fake goods.

At the news conference during the on-going annual NPC session in Beijing, Zhang said regulators should work with e-commerce companies on ways to improve industry supervision.

“Now the problem is the cost of these illegal business is too low and we have to raise the bar,” he added.

Also a system should be set up to track companies so that those who break the rules on counterfeit goods are punished and restricted in terms of business operations, according to Zhang.

Jenny Li has been doing overseas purchasing business for three years. The 30-year-old housewife living in Melbourne does 30 trades each month on average mainly selling healthcare medicine and infant formula powder.

Last year, she cooperated with her friend living in Paris to do international brands purchasing business. Once they purchase the product they will send them directly to China. The buyer should pay for the postage.

“The business is not very good during normal days but is bound to sharply increase when we come back to China so our consumers don’t need to pay the postage,” she says.

Not easy business

WeChat is her major way to do business and she uses Weibo, a Chinese twitter, to promote her products.

“The business is quite hard. You have to run around the city to buy the products, some are out of stock very soon,” she says.

“For a luxury handbag, deducting the postage and the money we earn, I will say the customers can probably get only 5 percent off compared with the price in China,” she explains.

So when looking at the “incredibly low price” online, Li always doubts — even if it’s the VIP price, that’s too good to be true.

“The best scenario — they are second-hand or off-season goods sold in outlets that pretend to be the new line,” she adds.

Two years from now, Li started to receive online messages and phone calls offering “cooperation opportunities.”

She was told that other providers from Dongguan, Guangdong Province, could supply shop owners with almost identical or even “genuine” luxury brand heels, but discounts higher than 50 percent.

Later she gets e-mails and messages of the same kind frequently. The products vary from food to cosmetics, even medicine, pearls and jewels.

“They told me I would never make money if you do the real overseas purchasing business. They said at least I should sell half fake products mixed with the authentic ones, thus I will never get caught,” she recalls.

But Li refused. “I’m not that desperate for money to lose my principals. Plus, I do this because I really like shopping,” she says.

Wallace Gu has a friend selling fake cosmetics. “The fake cream they produce — from color, smell to texture — really makes no difference to me. Then they use recycled authentic bottles to pack, which makes it even harder to distinguish,” he says.

Shanghai Daily searched on Taobao of “luxurious cosmetic brand empty bottles” and it turned out to be nearly 200 related items. The bottles range from 5 yuan to 300 yuan based on the size, type and brand.

Then the price of a bottle of 100ml cream of the same brand ranges from 2,100 yuan to 4,000 yuan.

Fake packaging bags and even shoeboxes of international brands have hundreds of choices online for people to click and buy.

“Now the shop owner won’t offer an suspiciously low price. They offer the price only 10 to 20 percent off so the fake product is more believable,” Gu adds.

As for receipts, warranty cards and other documentation, all can be copied. “That is so easy, they have a format in the computer and even software to create receipts,” Gu explains. That includes price tags and POS (point of sale) documents.

Factories say they can mail an empty box to their contacts living or studying overseas, then they mail them back to China, so the post marks and shipping information are done.