“It’s with a heavy heart that we share this message with you. After years of love and care poured into this little shop, it’s time for us to close.”
A heartfelt message from a couple who are closing their boutique doors with one final sale, ready to focus on their new role as grandparents.
At first glance, everything looks genuine. The emotional farewell. The photo of the owners. But on second glance, things don’t add up. Despite the title referencing a local town, the shipping details note that orders are dispatched from their warehouse in Central Asia. A closer look at the photo suggests the smoothness and uniformity of an AI-generated image.
This shop has all the hallmarks of what consumer organizations call “ghost stores”: e-commerce businesses that pose as local, independent boutiques but are actually based in another country. They often run deeply discounted sales, promoted via Instagram ads to unsuspecting customers.
Fake retailers are everywhere
Although it’s hard to find up-to-date numbers of these suspected fake e-commerce websites, this is a widespread problem.
“I don’t think prevalent gets near it. I think not even pervasive gets near it. It’s a part of the world we live in now. It is absolutely everywhere,” shares Chris Emmins, CEO and founder of KwikChex, a consumer protection organization.
“We’re experts in this, and we can’t even figure out quite what the numbers are. It’s extraordinary, and it doesn’t really matter where we look, because we’re detecting new ghost stores all the time.”
Emmins blames an “increase in sophistication” and technological environment that is “frankly, the ideal scenario for dishonest businesses at the moment.”
“It’s very easy to do,” he explains. “There’s a playbook. They will set up a believable website, get a UK-registered address, and then they’ll use social media and online reviews.”
“It’s just so darned easy and cheap to do these things. They now have AI on their side, which means that a website can go up within an hour.”
Consumers are becoming increasingly wary
“One of the unfortunate side effects of this sort of conduct and the fact that it’s so pervasive is that it creates hurdles and hindrances for many legitimate businesses,” Emmins explains.
What he is referring to is also known as a “trust recession,” where today’s shopper is becoming increasingly wary of what they find online.
UGC platform Bazaarvoice, in their 2026 Shopper Experience Index research, uncovered clear evidence that shoppers have become far more discerning than before. Most won’t buy on a deal alone; they need proof first. 97% now consult multiple sources before buying. 60% need 2-3 sources before they feel safe buying; 37% need 4 or more.
Bazaarvoice’s Chief Marketing Officer, Doug Straton, sees that consumers are looking for proof in myriad places. They are going to the retailer or brand for “general product information, pack information, ingredients, source of manufacturer, source of ingredients or components, all of those things that absolutely have to be trusted.”
But consumers no longer buy solely on trust from a product description page; they search across “a plethora of digital environments” for proof, in the form of reviews, user-generated content, and social media activity, that what they are buying is worthwhile.
“Once the product is out there in the environment, people trust other people,” he explains.
The need to prove you are human
Consumers are wary and looking for proof. Reading a product description is no longer enough for them. The onus is on retailers and brands to create the multiple touchpoints customers need to believe the business is legitimate.
Passenger, a UK-based adventure clothing company that has featured on the Times 100 list of the UK’s fastest-growing companies for three years in a row, puts this need to be seen as human into everything they do.
Their focus is on creating “offline community moments” wherever they can to meet “our customers where they play.” This not only deepens their relationship with their loyal fans but also creates genuine, real-life content.
“Our strong social content strategy ensures we capture behind-the-scenes moments from these events to give our customers a real look into the brand. Our founder, Rich, features quite heavily in these comms, openly talking about the brand journey, to give our customers a sense of the people behind the brand,” outlines Jon Lane, CEO of Passenger.
In stark contrast to the ghost stores, if a potential customer spots a Passenger ad, they can quickly cross-reference what they are being shown with a busy, vibrant social presence, genuine customer engagement, and extensive positive reviews.
In a trust recession, with customers looking for proof in many places, retailers can learn from Passenger’s playbook and focus on genuine human interactions on social media. In fact, this is an area where many small and independent retailers will have an advantage because they can easily demonstrate through behind-the-scenes documenting and founder-led content that they really are who they say they are.
Will that be enough to combat these stores?
While showing up as human and building genuine relationships and engagement on social media can boost retailers’ chances of winning consumers in this trust recession, experts feel that more must be done to protect both shoppers and legitimate retailers.
“Enforcement doesn’t work,” claims Emmins, who describes the task of trying to shut down these fraudulent websites as “a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.”
“The scale is just too large. You have problems with jurisdiction because so many of these stores are based in China, and there are all sorts of issues like that as well. “
He also feels that the usual advice given to consumers can be misleading and ineffective. “It typically says to consumers, this is a knowledge problem, so check online reviews. But online retailers are the third-worst group for fake reviews or review manipulation after crypto and online gambling,” he explains.
The solution, he feels, lies in what he terms “a probity analysis,” or “accredited integrity.” A way to rate websites would give consumers peace of mind when shopping on sites they trust and provide a way for legitimate businesses to prove they are genuine, beyond just saying “hey, I’m a real human”.
Using AI tools to run the analysis at scale, QwikChex can comb through “websites, terms and conditions, transparency, compliance” for any given business and assign it a score based on a traffic-light system.
As technology drives the proliferation of fraudulent websites, customers may need to seek proof of authenticity beyond the trust indicators they can see in their own research.
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