Missing link: Fight the online scrap trade!
Online distance selling undermines protection standards. Consumers themselves are partly to blame for this - but politicians must protect them more effectively.
Products confiscated by customs.
(Image: Zoll)
They have learned one thing and citizens rely on it every time they reach for the supermarket shelf, in the department store, when shopping online, in the restaurant and at the bakery: anything that is placed on the market in Germany, i.e. sold, is fundamentally safe according to human judgment and professional assessment. At least if it is used properly and there are no malfunctions or errors in the production or supply chain.
After all, who wants to put their children's livers at risk because of a pair of cheap but toxic plastic sandals? Or brush their teeth with lead? Or let the blades fly around their feet when trimming the lawn? On its Safety Gate warning portal, the EU only lists those products that have come to the attention of the market surveillance authorities – It is highly likely that this is only a fraction of the highly problematic products. And food supplements, for example, one of the problem areas that pose a risk to health, do not even fall under the category of products, because from a regulatory perspective they are foodstuffs in the EU.
However, the very practical protection of consumers has a long tradition: cheating and fraud have historically been the cause of trouble time and again, from bread rolls that are too small to manipulated weights. But the baker's baptism has had its day, as has the weighing master at the market. In the course of industrialization, mass production and concentration on retailers supplied by central purchasing instead of direct sales from the manufacturer. The risk grew that individual products were produced below the reasonably expected standard and at the same time caused many people to be affected. This risk is regulated on the one hand by controls and on the other by the market, even if its functioning must be regularly supported.
Warranty obligations ensure that consumers can ask their seller to rectify a defect within the first 12 months – and do not even have to prove that they are not responsible for the damage. In the following 12 months, this applies to – but in case of doubt, customers can enforce their rights.
Consumer protection law and technical standardization, labeling and information obligations have been introduced bit by bit over the centuries and especially in recent decades. As a result, most people know neither their rights nor the obligations of sellers or producers. It is the invisible part of the market that ensures that consumption is as easy as possible. As a rule, producers and consumers do not come into direct contact. They interact via intermediaries who may import products or via mail order or retail. In all cases, there is a responsible entity as a legally tangible seller. And this is precisely where a huge upheaval in trade is currently taking place. Because two things are coming together: The significantly better logistics – and the possibilities of the internet.
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The perfect storm
For consumer standards, this is the almost perfect storm – triggered by consumers themselves, of all people. Following the massive advertising promises ("store like a billionaire"), they are rushing to online marketplaces like lemmings, allowing themselves to be tempted by the operators with cheap psychological tricks such as countdowns for super special offers or supposedly ending stock levels. They are impulsively hunting for cheap products. The customer is sitting on the couch with their smartphone, while the retailer and manufacturer are often located in Chinese special economic zones – where a large proportion of the products are manufactured.
First comes the order click, then comes the logistics. Absurd quantities of parcels, packages and consignments are sent on their way. The EU Commission currently estimates that around 4.6 billion cheap products were imported into Europe in 2024 – 97% of all direct imports. A gigantic amount of individual consignments of goods that reach households by post and courier service and have traveled the world to get there.
In the hell of consignments
What many buyers do not know: The core of today's consumer protection law is that whoever imports a product into the European Union must ensure that it complies with the applicable European legal and technical standards.
In the old world, this worked according to a simple principle: a container full of products arrives at the port, customs checks the shipping documents and can carry out random checks to see whether the specified product is actually included. And if the customs officer suspects that the products may not comply with EU regulations, he can call in the relevant market surveillance authority. If, for example, a container full of fiber optic routers arrives, the customs officer reaches into a random box – and the Federal Network Agency takes a look at the device: Does it have the necessary declarations of conformity? Does the actual design correspond to what is stated in the documents? However, if users order directly from outside Europe, they can only hope that the retailer will adhere to the standards. There is no guarantee of this.
This is because the system of customs and market surveillance authorities is hopelessly overstretched: A real-world distributed denial-of-service attack – in which the large number of consignments of goods puts the existing inspection infrastructure out of action. This is infinitely fragmented in Germany: the tasks are distributed from municipal supervisory authorities to larger inspection bodies at regional associations and the Federal Network Agency. And for the few shipments whose content is actually checked, the market surveillance authorities regularly sound the alarm: what is checked is often simply dangerous junk. The rate of hits for unsafe products is incredible: in 2024, 92% of the consignments inspected by the Federal Network Agency, which is only responsible for small parts, were problematic.
Some manufacturers and retailers are undermining the applicable standards in full knowledge of this problem. Meeting them is expensive: the CE conformity test alone, which is mandatory in Europe, can cost anything from a few hundred to many thousands of euros. Anyone importing toys onto the EU market, for example, must also ensure CE conformity – Depending on the product, different requirements apply: Something that small children could put in their mouths must meet different criteria than a chemistry set. A rocking horse is subject to different requirements than cable car parts as defined by the EU Cable Car Regulation. Europe's regulatory landscape for product safety is complex – and depends on compliance being enforced.
Marketplaces are getting a lean foot
However, this system can only work at all if the manufacturer or importer is also liable for damages. So far, however, it has been legally sufficient for a "legal representative" to be appointed for the retailer in the EU. This is mandatory for online marketplaces under the Digital Services Act, but does not have to have any special qualifications, adequate financial resources or specialist knowledge.
But what happens if the alleged legal representative is actually just a straw man? In fact: nothing – except that the straw man is changed. A phenomenon that is well known from other areas and is now being repeated in online shopping. The marketplace operators, on the other hand, still make money from every product, regardless of whether it is permitted or not, whether it is dangerous or harmful to health, whether the retailer's details are correct or not.
This makes the whole thing a structural problem: how can it be ensured that what is put on the market is actually safe? The random checks carried out by the market surveillance authorities are practically incapable of checking the variety of different products. Taxpayers, who believe they can save money elsewhere and order from an infinite selection of products, are currently paying for the patchy controls. But is it really worth it just to have as much stuff delivered by post as cheaply as possible?
Lack of standard conformity destroys business models
This development also has repercussions on an even larger scale: With cheap import competition undermining standards, the market for standard-compliant providers no longer works. The entire idea of standardization, that there is a common minimum level of product safety and that the market functions above this level through advertising, product differentiation and prices for both sides, is being shaken. And this is a real problem in the medium term – and one for consumers. If importers of standard-compliant products disappear in the long term because the market collapses, there will automatically be less choice.
Now, it would be wrong to say that direct trade with companies in other EU countries would be bad for consumers overall. After all, by cutting out a few middlemen, they can theoretically save money. But this must not be at the expense of the product standards that protect them. And which they – currently trust blindly out of habit –. However, product standards are significantly lower elsewhere in the world and the level of control is even lower than here – if the standards for products intended for export apply at all. Consumers really need to be protected from themselves here because they are starting from false assumptions that used to apply.
Shopping without regrets does not exist
So there are many reasons why politicians urgently need to take action here. After all, Temu and Shein are growing rapidly. Some of the proposals are already on the table: with changes to the customs system, goods will have to be declared more comprehensively digitally –, which can improve practical processing during import. This is because the customs authorities can then use the description to check more easily, at least superficially, whether what is supposedly included is actually in a consignment of goods.
Another proposal: a processing fee that is charged for each shipment. Even with relatively small fees, this could quickly eat up the current direct import price advantage compared to mass imports with subsequent shipping from Europe. This could counteract the most absurd excesses -, for example, when individual penny items arrive in Europe by plane. In addition, controls could be simplified and the business model of direct imports with European consumers, bypassing applicable standards, could become structurally less attractive. The alternative: traders from non-EU countries would have to take out compulsory insurance in the EU to compensate for any damage caused by non-compliance. Without this, it would no longer be possible to trade here and the marketplaces would have to take responsibility for compliance.
Both would mean a certain surcharge for customers, but it could be worth it. After all, European and German shopping customers will probably have the most important role to play in the future: they need to understand that what they think is cheap is often cheap in the worst sense of the word. Anything else could really backfire for consumers eventually.
(vbr)
