.png)
When Digital Product Passports (DPP) start getting introduced in the EU from late 2027, anyone selling a product to consumers in the European Union will be required to provide a DPP to come with it.
It will create a chain reaction going back through the supply chain.
Retailers selling products to consumers will need their suppliers of products to deliver DPP data with those products.
Producers of finished products will, in their turn, need to require DPP data for whatever inputs and components they use in their production. And so on. Including logistics services, recycling services etc.
Who is the Seller on Online Marketplaces?
In most traditional situations it is obvious who is the seller, but not at online marketplaces. Let's take Amazon as our example. The majority of items you find on Amazon aren't sold by Amazon but by the producers who entered them for sale there. In those cases, Amazon is like a gigantic shop window and payment channel online for producers around the world.
Dropshipping and "third party sales" are the expressions used to describe this model.
Just a portion of what is available for sale on Amazon is actually sold BY Amazon. Most is sold VIA Amazon.
The Seller is Responsible for Providing the DPP's
As the responsibility for DPP's lies with the seller, in the case of dropshipping, Amazon's responsibility is only to change their web form to make it possible for producers to present their DPP codes and/or data, as far as we can see.
There are already serious issues with products sold through dropshipping not being compliant with regulations on health and safety. Consumer watchdogs repeatedly find products without CE-certification, products containing forbidden chemicals et cetera.
17 October, Toy Industries of Europe released the results of an analysis they had recently conducted. They had bought over a 100 unbranded toys from dropshippers through ten online marketplaces (Allegro, AliExpress, Amazon Marketplace, Bol. Cdiscount, Fruugo, Light In The Box, Shein, Temu, and Wish whereof six have signed the EU Product Safety Pledge, committing to stop the sale of unsafe products on their platforms).
80% of the toys failed to meet the EU safety standards and could be a danger to children
Some examples:
Many of the toys, including baby teething toys, could easily break up into small parts constituting a choking hazard
Too easy access to small magnets that can, if two are swallowed, perforate a child's intestines
An electronic drawing board with very easily button batteries that can cause severe injury if ingested
Slime products containing levels of Boron over 13 times beyond the legal limit. (Boron has been linked to reproductive health issues)
Does anybody really expect dropshippers to do any better when it's time to provide DPP's?
Can We Trust DPP's From Dropshippers?
If we cannot trust dropshippers to follow health and safety regulations today, how can we trust them to provide trustworthy DPP data in just a few years?
As a first step, we expect Amazon and other online retailers to have to make it easy for dropshippers to deliver their DPP data on their product pages on their online marketplaces.
Surely, we will have a discussion on them preventing sales to EU customers of products without DPP's.
But how will the accuracy of those DPP's be verified? And by whom?
Might the EU authorities even simply decide that dropshipping is incompatible with health & safety and environmental regulations and forbid it?
We don't know the answers. We just see that it will be an area in need of attention and action.
Image by Franck-Boston on iStock
Comments