Kuaishou's 'sales only go up' feature got it fined ¥26.7M for faking data

Kuaishou, one of China's largest short-video and livestream platforms, built a massive e-commerce business through its subsidiary 快手小店 (Kuaishou Shop). By 2025 it was the country's second-largest livestream e-commerce platform behind Douyin, with hundreds of billions in annual GMV. But its rapid growth masked systemic compliance failures.

In December 2025, the State Administration for Market Regulation imposed a fine of ¥26.69 million on Kuaishou's e-commerce subsidiary for seven categories of violations. Among them was a feature that displayed sales data as 'only going up' — showing fabricated transaction volumes that never decreased, helping merchants and livestreamers inflate their performance metrics to deceive consumers.

Other violations included failure to properly display business licenses, charging unreasonable penalty fees to merchants, not removing unsafe or infringing products, lax advertising review for health and medical products, and facilitating illegal wildlife product sales. The regulator described the fine as part of a broader push to hold livestream platforms accountable for what happens on their services.

The regulator fined it ¥26.69M for seven violations, including the fabricated sales feature, as part of a broader crackdown on livestream platform accountability.

Kuaishou prioritized GMV growth over compliance — the 'only goes up' feature was a deliberate engineering choice to inflate sales data

The platform's rapid expansion left it with weak content moderation and merchant vetting systems

China's regulators specifically targeted livestream e-commerce in 2025–2026, making Kuaishou a test case for platform accountability

When a platform engineers a feature to deceive its own customers, it is not a compliance gap — it is a business model built on fraud.

Kuaishou was ordered to rectify all violations. The fine was part of a broader regulatory campaign that also included increased scrutiny of Douyin and other livestream platforms. Kuaishou's e-commerce GMV growth had already slowed to 17.6% in mid-2025, and the regulatory crackdown added further pressure on the segment.