It often starts with an advertisement on Facebook or another social network: a great product, the virtues of which are praised by dozens of Internet users in the comments and a promotional offer limited in time that should not be missed.
Customers order and fall into the trap. Like this summer with the Seinsafe bra, supposed to protect against ... breast cancer. Nothing less. Dozens of women ordered the allegedly miraculous underwear for 29.90 euros ("instead of 59.90 euros, free shipping!" Touted the seller). Some have never had anything. Others received it well but immediately denounced its mediocre quality: the manufacturing cost should not exceed a few euros.
Seized by injured consumers, the association UFC-Que Choisir did not have time to act to enforce their right to reimbursement within the withdrawal period. The Seinsafe site had closed, leaving everyone on the shelf.
Prices varying from simple to tenfold
This example is not an isolated case. It illustrates the increasingly common and often questionable practice of "dropshipping". These are e-commerce sites that market products without having them in stock. To save time and storage costs, it is the supplier or manufacturer who delivers directly to the end customer, without the latter knowing it. Interesting at the outset, the practice has unfortunately been misused.
"Dropshipping could be legal but in practice it almost never is," notes Cyril Brosset, journalist specializing in new technologies at UFC-Que Choisir. The consumer believes he is addressing a French site but in reality, the French merchant has no supplier and is content to transmit the order to a Chinese site. In fact, it is often sold more expensive, it is much more complicated for the consumer to return the product and to be reimbursed in case of concern. "
Besides, if Seinsafe no longer exists, her bra is still on sale on other dropshipper websites. Without the anti-cancer properties but with the same photos and prices varying from simple to tenfold.
Most of the products come from the AliExpress site
"Dropshipping is an activity on which we have our eye," does not hide Loïc Tanguy, director of cabinet at the Fraud Repression. So much so that the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Suppression of Fraud (DGCCRF) launched a national survey last year on the subject. It is still ongoing.
"Inherently, it's legal," notes the official. But many dropshippers are not very healthy: they do not inform consumers well, produce false opinions, use emergency marketing which pushes the consumer to buy quickly products sold yet much more expensive than on others market places… ”
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Most of the products sold by dropshippers come from the Chinese site AliExpress (Alibaba group), which sells a whole bunch of products for just a few euros. "French consumers can buy directly on AliExpress," simply recalls Yang Ning, the general manager of AliExpress in France when asked about the question. The French do not know this enough and for a year we have been trying to remedy it. "
To avoid paying for a product two or ten times its price (at best) or never having it delivered (at worst), the best advice is to be careful before buying. Because then, it's often too late. "We must generally be wary of very good deals which often hide very bad surprises," recalls Loïc Tanguy of the DGCCRF. You must read the general conditions of use and take the time to compare with other similar products from other traders. "
For this, here is an unstoppable technique: save the photo of the desired product and enter it in the reverse search engine of Google Images. A list of all online uses of this same photo will then appear. You will be able to see if the product is sold elsewhere and at what price. Another method is to photograph the article with your mobile phone and submit it to the AliExpress application, which will allow you to compare it with the 100 million articles sold on the platform.
