On May 21, CCTV's "Focus Interview" program exposed a clothing sales model known as "deadstock single items" in livestreams on platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat Channels. These clothes are priced from a few yuan to a few dozen yuan, and hosts claim they are "brand-name goods" and "one-of-a-kind pieces" that won't cause wardrobe clashes when worn out, attracting a large number of consumers to snap them up. However, after receiving the goods, many people found problems such as stains, odors, pilling, and holes, and even miscellaneous items in the pockets such as loose change, earrings, sunflower seed shells, and hemorrhoid suppositories; some clothes also had cigarette burn marks. Upon identification, some of the problematic footage pointed to platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat Channels.

Ms. Liu from Liaoning bought a dress and a pair of pants advertised as "deadstock single items" in a livestream on a certain platform, and after receiving the goods found the clothes worn and something still in the pants pocket. Based on her shopping records, the reporter found the livestream room and discovered that similar livestream rooms exist in large numbers, selling under names such as "deadstock single items," "source factory," "brand clearance," "mall counter withdrawal," and "sample garments," with the common features of being only one piece and extremely low-priced. Sun Xiaoming, operations manager of Black Cat Complaints, revealed that complaints on the platform about buying so-called tail-order single items, big-brand cut-label goods, and deadstock sample garments in livestreams have approached 400, with issues including sweaters pilling and becoming moldy, clothes having holes, and pockets containing toilet paper, foundation, and hair.

To investigate the source of the goods, the reporter went to a nationally known clothing deadstock wholesale distribution center in South China and found a large number of "for livestream" advertisements. In a place called "Houshan," clothes were piled directly on the ground in a dirty and messy environment. The "mixed-lot" goods wholesaled by the pile in the deadstock market are exactly the goods supplied to these livestream rooms; even after sorting, there were still obvious signs of use such as oil stains, rust marks, and holes. Once merchants heard words such as "old" or "second-hand," they became very alert and taboo. Shi Sheng, associate professor and director of the Textile Department at Taiyuan University of Technology and an expert of the Waste Textile Professional Committee of the China Renewable Resources Recycling Association, pointed out after research that knitted fabrics cannot recover their elasticity after use, and signs of use are very obvious.

The reporter took the so-called "new clothes" bought in the deadstock market to a relatively large old-clothes recycling plant locally, and the owner immediately judged them to be old clothes. The old clothes in this recycling plant come from agents across the country, gathered through door-to-door collection, recycling bins, and other methods. In the sorting workshop, workers sort goods into A-grade and B-grade according to condition, and then select "premium goods" from the A-grade. The person in charge of the old-clothes recycling plant said bluntly that for the better premium goods, many livestream rooms source from here, attach hangtags themselves, and then call them one-of-a-kind items, one piece each, with no sizes. In the national old-clothes recycling and sorting circle, such goods are called "premium single items" and are in short supply.

In the sorting workshop, the reporter met multiple groups of operators of "deadstock single item" livestream rooms who had come to buy goods, and they all said they would not tell consumers in the livestream that what they were buying was second-hand clothing. In recent years, driven by this sales model, it has become common nationwide for old-clothes recycling plants and sorting plants to sell sorted clothing to livestream rooms, with substantial profits, and some recycling companies have even opened their own livestream rooms. When the reporter investigated another old-clothes recycling company in a certain place in Southwest China, the livestream room was hidden in the farmland outside, requiring a winding walk of two li to find. Inside the livestream shed, six or seven rows of clothes racks were full of "premium single items" selected from the old-clothes recycling workshop; clothes were wrapped in bedsheets and piled on the ground, covered in dust and smelling bad. Staff introduced that before sale they only used spray, irons, and hangtags for simple handling, and would not specially clean or disinfect. During the livestream, ironing, background lighting, and hangtags were used to create the visual effect of new clothes, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish.

Su Haopeng, an expert of the Expert Committee of the China Consumers Association and a professor at the Law School of the University of International Business and Economics, pointed out that this behavior by merchants is a typical fraudulent practice of passing off fake goods as genuine, inferior goods as good, and old goods as new, seriously infringing consumers' right to know and right to fair trade, and is an illegal act explicitly prohibited by Chinese law; relevant competent authorities should strengthen management. At the same time, this chaos also reflects the problem of non-standard recycling and reuse of second-hand old clothes. In 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments, in the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Promotion of Recycling of Waste Textiles," for the first time clearly stated the need to promote the trading of old clothing in an orderly manner. Shi Sheng said that at present there are still no relevant standards for the definition of second-hand clothing, cleaning and disinfection, hygiene and epidemic prevention standards, and trading links; market rules are unclear, the industry is chaotic, and it is hard to tell genuine from fake, so relevant standards need to be implemented as soon as possible. Deadstock is deadstock, and old goods are old goods; the two cannot be conflated. China discards tens of millions of tons of waste clothing every year. Establishing standards and norms and promoting the orderly development of the second-hand market can not only make full use of old clothing but also help green and low-carbon development.

Source: Buying "deadstock single items" for 9.9 yuan in livestreams? Focus Interview exposes Douyin and other livestream rooms selling deadstock clothes as old · Originally published on 2024-05-22