Experts proposed to oblige marketplaces to check sellers and goods

Experts of the Public Council under Rospotrebnadzor are discussing the introduction of new requirements for marketplaces, they may be required to check sellers and goods, reported in the department of the newspaper “Izvestia”.

Aggregators will be able to exercise control using the “Honest Sign” marking system. One of the members of the public council at Rospotrebnadzor, Oleg Pavlov, pointed to an increase in sales of illegal products against the background of the increased popularity of online trading, while, according to him, violations are often obvious and do not require test purchases and examinations. For example, the product contains prohibited components, or there is no information on the product.

“Aggregators can weed out such suppliers and products,” he said.

The expert also drew attention to the fact that the introduction of new requirements is also justified in view of the departure of a number of foreign copyright holders who previously independently suppressed the sale of counterfeit goods, as well as the moratorium on state inspections.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade supports the imposition of certain duties on businesses and believes that marketplaces should not allow the sale of goods with violations. The “Honest Sign” is considered one of the most effective tools in the fight against illicit trafficking in industrial products.

Wildberries, the newspaper notes, considered the measure proposed by experts to be redundant. They believe that it will increase the load on aggregators, but will not solve the very problem of selling products of dubious quality, since unscrupulous entrepreneurs will still find distribution channels. Ozon said that they are forming a list of brands that are important for buyers, for which they request documents from sellers to confirm their quality and originality.

On March 1, a government decree came into force that equates marketplaces with other participants in the turnover in relation to the rules for mandatory product labeling. Now online platforms will be responsible for not transferring information to the Honest Sign system and selling counterfeit goods. How noted experts interviewed by Vedomosti, this means that any aggregator is now obliged to label the goods sold, even if it does not store these goods in stock, as large marketplace owners do.

“Honest Sign” is a unified national system for digital marking and tracking of goods: a special digital code helps to distinguish a fake from the original and provides access to information about the product manufacturer, shelf life, time and place of production or sale, and other information about the product. Information about each movement of such a digital code is stored in the state database. The purpose of this system is to fight unscrupulous manufacturers and their low-quality counterfeit products.