(Yicai Global) Oct. 30 -- As cross-border e-commerce becomes more popular in China, more and more imported products are failing to meet quality standards, with those bought online being five times more likely to fail inspections than other imported goods.

The industry will be worth CNY12 trillion (USD1.81 trillion) in China by 2020, Wei Jianguo, former deputy commerce minister, said at the International E-Business Expo in Hangzhou on Oct. 26. Annual growth is currently between 35 and 40 percent and last year, the total volume of imported commodities bought online hit CNY25.6 billion.

However, a lack of standards has seen a number of platforms export counterfeit and low quality goods to China, leading to consumer losses. The quality failure rate for food and cosmetics ordered online from overseas was 4.6 percent last year, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision.

Due to the uncoordinated inflow of cross-border retail products, differences in domestic and foreign standards, and consumers being the main buyers, traditional import and export supervision models do not apply to cross-border retail, an official said.

A number of Chinese e-commerce firms led by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA] are researching new standards for the sector in a bid to lay out authoritative, scientific standards, the official added.