E-commerce shops in China are attaching oversized labels on clothes to prevent customers from wearing them before returning under shopping platforms’ return policy.

During China’s Double 11 shopping festival, which falls on November 11 every year, the move by many online shops to attach giant labels and combination locks went viral.

Several shops are attaching giant paper labels, some bigger than A4 paper size, to the clothes they sell, carrying words such as “no return or exchange if the label is removed”.

An online shop based in Beijing also posted on social media that they attached combination locks on the zips of the coats they sell. Only after buyers confirm their purchase would the shop give the code.

The shop owners said this is to curb so-called shearing the sheep behaviour of some customers; the Chinese expression means “taking advantage of shops”.

They believed the lock would make the “sheep shearers” ashamed of wearing the clothes for free.

China’s e-commerce platforms began applying the seven-day unconditional return policy after a revised version of the country’s Consumer Protection Law took effect in 2014.