This article explores Netcraft’s research into the global growth of fake stores, including activity that makes use of the e-commerce platform SHOPYY to target Black Friday shoppers. Insights include:

• An increase of 110% in fake stores identified between August to October 2024
• Tens of thousands of fake stores utilizing the e-commerce tech platform SHOPYY
• More than 66% of SHOPYY-powered sites identified as fake stores
• More than 9,000 new and unique fake store domains detected by Netcraft between November 18–21, hosted on SHOPYY alone
• Most activity attributed to threat actors likely operating from China
• Activity primarily targeting U.S. shoppers
• Use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate text for product listings