The online retailer is adopting strong measures to unearth vendors of fake items, as Guo Ying and Zhao Wanwei report for Xinhua China Features.

Members of a secret team working for the e-commerce giant Alibaba have the task of pretending to be online consumers who test-buy items from the billion-plus products on the company's platforms.

The team members spot-check about 100,000 products, spending approximately 100 million yuan ($15 million) a year on average.