At least 85 to 95 percent of products from Shein, AliExpress and Temu do not comply with European legislation. This is according to an inspection by European market surveillance authorities. Dutch regulators want a joint approach to protect consumers.
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Dangerous products
Along with this huge increase in parcels, there is also an increasing flow of imports of prohibited goods. Of the inspected products (from Shein, AliExpress and Temu), 85 to 95 percent do not comply with European product legislation.
According to Dutch regulators, these products are often ineffective, risky for consumers or do not work properly. These include toys with loose parts, which are choking hazards for young children. Or electronics that catch fire due to overheating, or cause malfunctions. Banned substances, such as lead, are also often found in these products.
Dutch market surveillance authorities and Dutch Customs are calling for a joint approach in checking the parcels coming from Chinese platforms. According to them, all parties in the chain (production, trade and transport) of ecommerce products from outside the European Union, government and buyers must take responsibility.
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I guess I’m surprised that 5-15% of these products do comply.
I’m going to guess that either there are no standards to meet for those, or the standards also just happen to line up with the current cheapest material and construction options.
Or they are only covered by standards that are complete jokes. Like the fire standard I saw at my old job that a pack of printer paper would easily pass because it was just a time before burning a hole through, and the paper pack took longer just because of how thick it is (the time was like 5 minutes or something if I recall correctly).
There are multiple tiers of products:
Top ones tend to comply, bottom ones tend to be the cheapest.
But people like to generalize and act like everything was the same, instead of admitting they conned themselves into buying trash.