Alibaba bans sales of shoddy home appliances amid complaints

HANGZHOU - Alibaba has banned the sale of fourteen types of small home appliances from online shopping platforms Taobao and Tmall, the company said on Thursday.

The banned products include electric boilers, electromagnetic ovens, rice cookers and other home appliances, covering eight domestic brands, including popular consumer brands Peskoe and Royalstar, Alibaba said in a statement.

Trading data showed customer complaints of the products are much higher than average, it said.

Last year, electric boilers worth about 70 million yuan ($10.75 million)from the eight brands were sold via Alibaba.

This is the first large-scale expulsion from Alibaba's e-commerce platforms. "Substandard home appliances can lead to great safety hazards. We hope the manufacturers will improve their quality," the company said.

In April last year, Alibaba banned Wonderflower, a copycat home appliance brand, after receiving heavy complaints from customers.

Alibaba conducts random monthly quality checks, and products that fail the inspections twice are likely to be removed from online listings, the company said.