“With tears in our eyes, we must share the news with you,” the ads, which have been sponsored to appear on people’s social media feeds, begin. “After so many years of love and dedication to our Maison Canberra boutique, the time has come to say goodbye.”
The world is changing, and the “boutique” can no longer keep up, the ad says. Its owners have become grandmothers, and want to spend more time with their families. To “close this chapter” they are holding a “big sale”.
But there is no bricks-and-mortar Maison Canberra store. A domain search shows the website was only registered on 21 March. Two Maison Canberra Facebook pages were created on 23 March. Another, called Maison Canberra Boutique, was set up on 1 April. There is no ABN or registered company name on the website.
Experts say Maison Canberra is an example of an online-only “ghost” store, claiming to be Australian despite having no local shopfront, telling a false story to entice customers into shopping their closing down sales.
Ghost stores are online businesses that only exist in a digital sense and do not have a physical storefront. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says the products are typically shipped from overseas warehouses.
A spokesperson for the ACCC says it is investigating the issue after an increase in complaints about online retailers operating ghost stores.
Guardian Australia has identified several other e-commerce sites which appear to be advertising as ghost stores: Cooper&Ellis, Molly-Smith, Julie Melbourne, and Syd Collective.
They are running social media ads that tug on the heartstrings about “closing down” sales after many years in business – despite only being registered recently.
The chief executive of the Consumer Policy Research Centre, Erin Turner, says that if these sites are making false claims then they could risk breaching Australian consumer law.
“Companies cannot lie to their customers,” she says. “This includes lying about the location of their operations, fake closing-down sales or using images of fake owners to create a sense that the business is legitimate”.
Turner says search engines and social media platforms should be doing more to confirm if the businesses advertising on their sites are legitimate.
As for where the clothes come from? Maison Canberra is selling what it calls the “Andrine™ Casual Sweatshirt and Dress Set” for $79.95. It claims the original price was $269.95. A reverse image search shows you can buy what appears to be an identical item on the Chinese marketplace AliExpress for just $14.99.
Prof Jeannie Paterson, the co-director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, says the fact that you can buy similar or identical clothing for cheaper elsewhere doesn’t mean the sites are engaging in misleading conduct.
“The issue is that they’re saying they’re discounting it from a storefront, and there is no storefront, which means there is no real discount,” she says. “This is close to a scam.”
Paterson says the sites should be subject to Australian consumer law because they are advertising on social media here, but it will be difficult to enforce any breaches if they are run from overseas.
“The ACCC can, in theory, seek to find the company,” he says. “It’s just difficult because it’s unclear that you can even identify the real seller.”
Paterson says social media platforms should take more responsibility for advertising on their platforms.
The online retailer Molly-Smith claims to be a “family-run business” based in Sydney and owned by “Molly and Peter Smith” which has been a “well-known name in the local fashion scene since 2012”. The domain name was registered last year.
“Over the years, we’ve faced unsold stock, financial difficulties, the impact of Covid, and even competitors copying our designs and leaving unfair reviews,” the website says. “Saying goodbye is never easy, but we hope you’ll understand and support our decision.” The exact same copy appears on the Facebook page of an apparently UK-based label called Taylor London, although that post is signed off from “Edward & Margaret Taylor”.
The Cooper&Ellis website features an image of a couple standing smiling outside a Cooper&Ellis shopfront. The file name begins with “a-realistic-photo-of-an-australian-coupl_Ai”.
The company claims to be a clothing label founded by two people called Cooper and Ellis “in the heart of Byron Bay”, a well-known tourist destination in the New South Wales northern rivers. But the store does not exist.
After “16 wonderful years”, “Cooper and Ellis” are “retiring” and are offering an “exclusive 80% discount”, according to the site. But a domain search shows the website was only registered on 13 February. The Cooper&Ellis Facebook page wasn’t created until 20 February.
The Byron Bay Chamber of Commerce president, Matt Williamson, believes Cooper&Ellis is the latest example of an e-commerce site capitalising on the beach town’s popularity by pretending to be a local brand.
“We’re pretty pissed off, to be frank,” he says. “What it does is it undermines all of those local businesses who legitimately are here and employ local people and go to the expense of having a shopfront and do everything by the rules.”
Williamson says the chamber had researched a different online store after fielding complaints from locals, which turned out to be a “Chinese-based company with absolutely no local representation”.
“The articles of clothing looked really nice but when they arrived they weren’t even remotely close to what was online,” he says. “I imagine it’s very easy to replicate versions of the same thing.”
Meta, which owns the Facebook and Instagram platforms where the sponsored ads appeared, said it was investigating the pages.
The photographs purporting to be of real people outside physical shops on the online store “closing down sale” ads appear to be AI generated or manipulated with AI tools. If they are images of actual persons, the Guardian does not suggest they are aware their likeness is being used in this way.
Maison Canberra, Cooper&Ellis, Molly-Smith, Julie Melbourne, Syd Collective and Taylor London have not responded to requests for comment.
