The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Operational decision · 2024-2025
HKTVmall's owner built a proxy-shopping platform, then shut it after a fake-goods scandal
Everuts let agents ship luxury goods without checking authenticity. After a counterfeit-handbag scandal, HKTVmall's parent shut it in under three years.
Hong Kong Technology Exploration · Everuts · HKTVmall · 2025-12-19
What happened
Everuts launched in early 2023 as a proxy-shopping platform from HKTVmall's parent, Hong Kong Technology Exploration: outside agents abroad would buy items, including designer handbags and sneakers, and ship them to Hong Kong buyers through the platform.
In October 2024 a former agent told a reporter the platform did not authenticate what agents sent — sealed packages went straight to the warehouse and out to buyers — and agents were told not to give customers formal invoices. Customers had already reported receiving handbags with mismatched dust bags, wrong logo fonts, and stickers printed in simplified Chinese.
Everuts suspended new orders on 19 December 2025, after less than three years, citing shrinking transaction volume and widening losses. The closure followed the parent group's earlier shutdown of its UK unmanned-store venture In:Five, another expansion project that failed to pay off.
Why it happened
- A proxy-shopping platform for luxury goods is only as trustworthy as its authentication step — skipping it to move faster left buyers exposed and the platform holding the reputational damage
- Withholding invoices removed the one document that would have let a buyer verify or dispute what they received
- A retail parent chasing growth through side ventures (proxy shopping, unmanned stores abroad) wound both down within about a year of each other once neither built a defensible business
The lesson
A marketplace that will not verify what moves through it is not neutral — it is underwriting every counterfeit that gets shipped.
Sources
- on.cc 東網 — Everuts proxy-shopping agents accused of selling unauthenticated goods, withholding invoices
- HK01 — HKTVmall parent's global proxy-shopping platform Everuts suspends operations from 19 December
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