During the Electrical Fire Safety Week (November 22-28), the Electrical Safefy First (Esf) organisation focused on the risks of buying electrical products from online marketplaces. Some activities were addressed directly to consumers to advice on safe online shopping and a petition were done to call for better regulation of marketplaces.
«Online marketplaces – said Amdea, the UK Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances -the already seen as convenient and cheap options for buying household goods, increased in popularity last year, with 58% of UK adults saying they would be using them for Christmas shopping, seeing them as an accessible and cost-effective option in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which meant that trips to high street stores for buying gifts were not an option. This year, with supply chain issues threatening Christmas deliveries and cautious attitudes towards returning to pre-Covid normality, shoppers are once again looking online in the search for those “must have” Christmas gifts and gadgets».
However, said ESF, sellers of counterfeit or sub-standard electrical products exploit online marketplaces for the ease with which they can sell their goods to a mass market – it can be impossible to know what you are actually buying, with no guarantee that the product you receive will be genuine.
