Chinese image-sharing platform Yupoo (yupoo.com) has once again been highlighted in an investigation by World Trademark Review[1] as a worrying source of links to listings offering the sale of counterfeit products for a wide range of brands. As such, it is certainly a site to keep on the radar of any brand owner utilising a brand-protection programme geared towards the identification of infringing product listings.
The investigation terms the platform as the 'go-to shopfront for major counterfeiters in China'. The primary method of such use appears to be the posting by counterfeiters of galleries of images of the items on offer, accompanied by captions linking to external marketplace listings (such as the Chinese site, Weidian) or providing contact details (often via WeChat or WhatsApp) for reaching out to the seller directly. The practice appears to be gaining popularity as a result of recent observed increases in compliance by other platforms, in response to takedown requests against infringing goods listed directly on them, together with other proactive enforcement measures.
In many cases - particularly where the images link to listing on platforms such as AliExpress or DHgate - the destination pages can be found to show generic listings with multiple product variations available, with instructions on how to purchase the actual counterfeit item (through the selection of appropriate options in the marketplace listing) having been provided on the referring Yupoo page. As such, this practice - known as the use of 'hidden links'[2] - appears to be fairly prevalent on the Yupoo platform.
Following these trends, Yupoo has added a disclaimer to its pages, absolving itself of responsibility for uploaded content. Although there is no well-established reporting function for infringements on the platform, there is a contact address (1400439992[at]qq.com) which can be used by brand-protection practitioners for directly reporting infringements, provided certain pieces of relevant documentation (such as colour scans of a trademark certificate, and power-of-attorney documentation, according to the WTR investigation) are provided.
How might this infringing content appear in practice on the platform? As a simple proxy for the approach taken by a formal monitoring service, performing a Google 'site' query for results on the Yupoo site, which also contain the name of a target brand of interest, typically returns a number of relevant user profile pages of the form [username].x.yupoo.com. One typical example, containing subsections for a number of luxury brands, is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Example of a Yupoo user profile page containing images potentially associated with the sale of counterfeit goods for a number of luxury brands
In this case, the 'contact' tab contains a range of contact details, including a range of WhatsApp contact numbers, Facebook and Instagram profiles, an e-mail address, and a link to a standalone e-commerce site hosted on szwego[.]com - a fairly rich dataset which could also form the basis of an OSINT-style investigation to establish links with other entities involved in the sale of infringing items.
In another example, the Yupoo profile page gives a link to an external website (copyaaa[.]ru), which itself re-directs to a standalone e-commerce site - yupoo-dhgate[.]ru - hosted on a specially-registered domain whose name makes reference to the Yupoo brand (in addition to comprising an infringement against the name of the DHgate marketplace) (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The standalone e-commerce website hosted at yupoo-dhgate[.]ru
Might this be common practice against the sellers creating their shopfronts on the popular Yupoo site? A search of domain-name zone-file data shows that, as of the start of June 2025, there are around 852 (gTLD) domains with names containing 'yupoo'. Many of these domains similarly also feature the names of other marketplaces (e.g. AliExpress, AllChinaBuy, Tmall) or other potentially targeted brands (e.g. Adidas, Air Max, Apple, Balenciaga, Breitling, Burberry, Bvlgari, Cartier, Dior, Dr Martens, Dyson, Fendi, Givenchy, Gucci, Hermes, Jordan, Louboutin, Moncler, Supreme, Vilebrequin, Zanotti). One additional point of particular note in the dataset is the popularity of use of the .fashion domain-name extension (TLD), accounting for 480 of the cases. Overall, 515 of the domains produce some sort of live website response, and a number of explicit 'clusters' of associated sites are apparent within the set - such as 348 sites with page titles ending with the phrase 'gucci bags watches nike clothing'.
Many of the domains in the wider dataset resolve to similar 'shopfront-style' pages, re-direct to pages providing contact details (frequently via WhatsApp profile pages), or resolve to other standalone e-commerce sites in their own right. Some of these also infringe other e-commerce brands, e.g. by duplicating the 'look-and-feel' of marketplace platform websites – or the Yupoo platform itself. In some of the latter cases (which include examples such as bestyupoo[.]com, jerseyyupoo[.]com, jersey-yupoo[.]com, soccer-jersey-yupoo[.]com, yupoo[.]sale, yupoo[.]site, and yupooclothes[.]com), similarities in elements of the HTML source code of the sites indicates possible re-use of common templates in the website construction.
Some examples of the wider set of infringements are shown in Figure 3. In certain examples, additional features commonly associated with the sale of counterfeit items = such as the use of obfuscation of the names of the brands being targeted (as a means of evading both detection and enforcement on any associated external platforms) = are also observed (Figure 4).
Figure 3: e-commerce or 'shopfront' websites hosted on Yupoo-specific domain names (ali-yupoo[.]com, jersey-yupoo[.]com, yupooshoes[.]net, shoeyupoo[.]com, yupooreplica[.]com (re-directs to dhgatechina[.]ru), 8billion-yupoo[.]com (and other examples re-directing to the same content; yupoo[.]qiqis[.]top))
Figure 4: Example of a website hosted on a Yupoo-specific domain name and featuring product listings with obfuscated brand names
References
[2] https://circleid.com/posts/20220510-breaking-the-rules-on-counterfeit-sales-the-use-of-hidden-links
This article was first published on 1 July 2024 at:
https://www.iamstobbs.com/insights/yupoo-image-sharing-as-a-gateway-to-counterfeit-sales
