Deputies of the State Duma are going to amend the law on the activities of marketplaces. Two documents are currently under consideration.
Photo:Sergey Elagin/Business Online/TASS
The Center for the Study of Consumer Behavior of Roskachestvo notes that one in five buyers had controversial situations after purchasing goods on online platforms. Difficulties remain in interacting with sellers, as well as a high level of falsification, including of goods for children. The Association of Enterprises of the Children's Goods Industry estimated the share of fakes at 30%. The risk of buying toys and other goods made of low–quality or toxic materials is quite high.
The interlocutor of the MEDIA TALK publication Diana said: "The nipples for baby bottles of a well-known brand, purchased at the OZON site, turned out to be a fake. Immediately after opening the package, I was confused by the smell of burnt rubber. After washing the products and sterilization, it was preserved, and even if I had not bought the same product before, in any case, I would not have given the child toxic items. I made a request for a refund, it was approved in a minute. Now I began to look more closely at the goods bought online. A few days later, I noticed that this product was no longer on the site. There must have been a lot of returns."
The OZON press service noted: "We promptly respond to complaints from users and copyright holders - we immediately ask the seller for documents for the product. If the seller does not provide them within three days, the product card will be hidden from the marketplace and will not be available until the end of the proceedings."
The reason for the appearance of counterfeit goods on online platforms is the imperfection of the legislative framework, in which the seller, and not the site, bears all responsibility. Vladimir Gutenev, Chairman of the Expert Council on Trade Development and Consumer Protection under the Committee on Industry and Trade of the State Duma, explained in an interview with the MEDIA TOK agency: "These platforms consider themselves more like so-called communication platforms uniting sellers and buyers. Therefore, the provisions of the law "On the Basics of State Regulation of Trade Activities in the Russian Federation" cannot be applied to their intermediary activities due to differences in the legal nature of the relationship. At the same time, the growth of trade on marketplaces leads to an increase in the number of complaints and appeals from citizens who purchase goods remotely, including children's toys."
The bill, which is designed to eliminate this gap, was submitted to the State Duma in early March by Vladimir Gutenev together with the head of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy Andrey Kutepov.
"The document is aimed not only at reducing the monopolization of the market, but also aims to guarantee the protection of the rights of all participants in the online market, eliminate current regulatory gaps, and create a healthy competitive environment. One of the key aspects of the bill is ensuring the responsibility of marketplaces for products sold on their platforms," Vladimir Gutenev said.
Another draft law, submitted for consideration in April and which, according to Vladimir Gutenev, will be adopted in the first reading in the near future, provides for the introduction of an obligation for the seller to inform the buyer of a link to the register of issued certificates of conformity and registered declarations of conformity of goods, including children's ones. In turn, the owner of the platform will be obliged to provide the seller with the opportunity to place such a link in the electronic product card.
The OZON press service, in response to a request from MEDIA TALK, assured: "Before entering the site, the seller must have all the necessary documents, including brand documents and quality certificates. This is a mandatory requirement according to the rules of our site. The user can request documents and quality certificates before purchasing by contacting marketplace support. We block sellers who provide fake documents."
At the same time, the "Law on Consumer Protection", which is aimed at providing the buyer with the most reliable and necessary information about goods, does not contain mandatory requirements for the seller, the owner of the marketplace, regarding the provision of data to the consumer containing links to the relevant information resource about the product.
Mandatory labeling of goods can help in the fight against counterfeiting, the Expert Council on Trade Development and Consumer Rights is confident. At the same time, the buyer will receive reliable information about the product.
Indeed, in recent years, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has been expanding the range of products. According to the Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies, which is the operator of the state marking system "Honest Mark", the effect of using this mechanism from the beginning of its implementation in 2019 to the end of 2023 amounted to about 800 billion rubles. However, not all products, including children's products, are included in these lists yet.
"Mandatory labeling of children's clothing was launched in 2021. Since December 20, 2023, the country has been conducting an experiment on labeling on a voluntary basis certain types of children's goods, which will be completed at the end of this year. Among these products, children's scooters and walkers, strollers for dolls, board games for children under 14 years old and a number of other items. I am sure that the introduction of mandatory labeling of children's goods will significantly contribute to improving the quality of products sold on marketplaces," said Vladimir Gutenev, Chairman of the Expert Council for Trade Development and Consumer Protection under the Committee on Industry and Trade of the State Duma. All the details of the experiment are spelled out in detail in the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 2145 dated December 14, 2023. Therefore, for now, the requirement to label goods that are not subject to mandatory certification is an initiative of the trading platform.
The OZON press service said that a number of goods sold on the site must be marked "Honest mark". If the code does not count, then the product will not be placed in the warehouse and it will not be available for purchase.
The sites, being competitors in the market, are fighting counterfeiting together. "In 2023, together with other marketplaces, as well as major copyright-holding brands, we created a document of good practices based on FAS and OKYUR. The adopted standards take into account the best market experience and the most effective anti-counterfeiting tools and help in the development of industry measures to combat counterfeit products. On the basis of the Association of E-Commerce Companies, together with colleagues from other marketplaces and the largest online stores, we promptly monitor the situation with counterfeit goods in the general market and do not allow products to be sold that have already fallen under the definition of counterfeit on another platform by decision of government agencies," OZON said.
A simple analysis of goods on two online platforms - OZON and Wildberries – showed that not all sellers, including sellers of children's goods, provide certificates. Of the 10 selected pacifiers for OZON, only 5 had certificates. At Wildberries, sellers of the selected 10 baby nipples provided certificates in 7 cases. The country of origin indicated in the description is also not a guarantee. Goods from Russia, as well as from China and Ukraine, turned out to be without certificates.
The legislative framework for online commerce is still being formed, but it is already obvious that this market segment will be regulated. The bills currently under consideration in the State Duma are designed primarily to protect the buyer. And there are more and more of them. According to Roskachestvo, the share of large sites in the first half of 2023 increased by 35 percent compared to the same period in 2022. And there is no doubt that these numbers will only grow.
Recall that on the eve it became known that the RATEK organization called on the Ministry of Industry and Trade to tighten methods of combating counterfeiting on Russian marketplaces. The document says that in the country it is possible to create a procedure for "responding" online sites to appeals from copyright holders, integrate their databases with Rospatent registries to verify claims, as well as expand the responsibility of online markets for counterfeit products presented on their sites.
