The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Australian Product Safety Pledge has seen online retailers remove more than 90 per cent of unsafe merchandise from their websites within two days.
Unveiling the first report of the initiative, Deputy Chair of the ACCC, Delia Rickard said the Pledge was launched in November last year in response to the growth in online shopping and online marketplaces.
“The Pledge seeks to protect Australian consumers shopping online from product safety risks and does this by strengthening product safety measures across online marketplaces,” Ms Rickard said.
“The voluntary initiative commits signatories to 12 product safety actions that go beyond ordinary legal requirements and which aim to prevent the sale of unsafe goods online,” she said.
“The first report on how signatories to the Pledge have performed against the commitments, released today (19 November), highlights some of the ways businesses have addressed product safety risks through technological enhancements.”
Ms Rickard said the ACCC was pleased with the measures implemented by the Pledge signatories, which were helping to ensure consumers could have a safer experience when shopping online.
The Deputy Chair said some of the new innovations used by current signatories included predictive technology and web crawling to ensure that unsafe product listings were removed as soon as possible.
She said current signatories to the Pledge were AliExpress, Amazon Australia, Catch.com.au, eBay Australia and MyDeal.com.au.
Ms Rickard also urged shoppers to be careful and consider product safety when buying online.
“It’s important to know who you are buying from; make sure you do your research and read online customer reviews about the seller or product,” she said.
“Some children’s toys and clothing are required to display safety warnings; look out for them on the product listing and check if the product is age appropriate before buying.”
Ms Rickard said in Australia, around one in 10 product safety recall notices related to unsafe toys and the ACCC had previously estimated that one in every four households contained an unsafe product that had been recalled.
The ACCC’s 10-page Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
