BEIJING, April 15 -- Chinese authorities have processed 266,000 complaints from consumers and retrieved 490 million yuan (80 million U.S. dollars) for them in the first quarter, official figures showed on Wednesday.

Complaints related to online shopping grew the most, up 174.4 percent year on year, according to the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC), as e-commerce creates fertile ground for irregular activities.

On the back of the rapidly developing e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba and JD.com, China's online retail trade volume grew 49.7 percent year on year to 2.8 trillion yuan in 2014, according to an earlier report by the China E-Commerce Research Center.