MANILA, Philippines – Since LazMall’s launch in 2018, e-commerce platform Lazada Philippines said it has never had to refund an item because it was a counterfeit.
This has been the experience of Lazada Philippines’ head of seller operations Alvin Ching during his two and a half years working in the e-commerce platform’s customer care unit.
This does not mean the platform never gets any refund requests for receiving allegedly counterfeit items. However, the claims are often denied after further investigation finds them to be invalid.
“It’s not like we don’t want to pay. It’s just when we look at it, it’s not a valid case,” he said.
Ching attributed this to two factors: stringent screening of LazMall vendors and an intellectual property (IP) portal shared by the entire Alibaba Group.
The Alibaba Group is the majority owner of Lazada.
LazMall consists of international and local brands, as well as authorized brand distributors. When this section of the e-commerce platform launched in 2018, Ching recalled that it was one of the first e-commerce platforms that offered an authenticity guarantee.
“Meaning if you’re able to prove that you got a fake, you’ll get twice your money back. That guarantee is still in place right now,” Ching told reporters at the sidelines of Lazada Philippines’ 13th anniversary celebration on Thursday, March 20.
Ching explained that LazMall vendors go through a stringent screening process before they are allowed to list on the platform and are consistently monitored. Vendors that are caught selling counterfeit products may be removed from the platform, regardless of whether they are selling on LazMall or not.
“If we can prove that you’re a LazMall store and you’re infringing [authentic products], you hurt the entire platform. And so we would take [stores] down,” he said.
Brands who wish to protect their IPs can register with a portal shared by the Alibaba Group to have listings of fake products taken down.
However, Ching also named a brand’s willingness to enforce their IP rights as a limitation to enforcing IPs on the platform.
“If [a counterfeit of a brand], for example, is there [on Lazada] and no one’s enforcing it, then it’s just there… Maybe to us it’s obvious, right? But how can we [Lazada] act as… make that decision?” he explained.
In 2023, then-trade secretary Fred Pascual ordered Lazada and Shopee to explain cases of deceptive sellers and fake or pirated product listings on their platforms. This stemmed from several consumer complaints against fake, defective or undelivered parcels.
2023 data from the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) found that Lazada was the top source of fake goods, accounting for 69% of piracy reports.
Lazada Group’s chief business officer James Chang earlier said the platform had a zero-tolerance for counterfeit products. But he admitted they cannot inspect every product listed on their platform.
“For us, we do not tolerate counterfeit products. But of course, we cannot buy every product and inspect every product on Lazada platform,” he said.
Double-digit growth in 2025
While he is unable to disclose specific figures, Ching reported that Lazada Philippines saw double-digit growth in 2024, and the platform expects to sustain this momentum in 2025.
Ching said Lazada Philippines’ biggest growth driver was high-value items such as phones, which are often sold on LazMall by brands such as Apple. This was followed by beauty, fashion, grocery, and mother and baby categories.
For 2025, Lazada Philippines expects to sustain its double-digit growth prospects by further expanding its assortment of quality offerings. Ching said Lazada hopes to expand their offerings in categories like health, as well as products used for outdoor and recreational activities as more younger Filipinos adopt healthier lifestyles.
“So either they go hiking on the weekends or during weeknights, for example, they go pickleball. So the equipment and the apparel for that are very strong in terms of the demand,” Ching added. – Rappler.com