The biggest challenge for efficient official market surveillance of online trade (eCommerce) is currently the rapidly increasing number of orders for individual products, which can only be checked with great effort and, in the event of infringements, can only be intercepted individually, as well as the difficulty in tracing them back to the manufacturer. The Federal Office of Consumer Health, together with experts from the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection (BMSGPK) and the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), drew attention to new health risks associated with online purchases at a panel discussion organised by the Austrian Eco-Social Forum (ÖSF). Products are often purchased online that cannot be bought anywhere in the EU and are not found during stationary checks. There is also a need to raise awareness of the health risks associated with cheap and ultra-cheap products.
Monitoring online trade: online purchases are increasing massively
Austrian consumers are increasingly buying food and other everyday products such as cosmetics, food supplements and children's toys online: in 2023, two thirds of Austrians bought everyday goods online. This trend is growing rapidly, especially for children's toys. However, official controls mainly take place in brick-and-mortar stores. In 2024, the BAVG carried out over 140 inspections and samples of toys, cosmetics and food supplements in cooperation with AGES. The large American and Chinese online platforms also fall under the BAVG's inspection regime. In 2024, the complaint rate for toys, for example, was over 80 per cent due to safety defects or labelling deficiencies. Some food supplements were found to contain banned or unauthorised ingredients such as lithium or harmful mercury.
Consumer protection on the Internet: Cheap(est) toys are often dangerous
The BAVG works very closely with customs and AGES, for example, to monitor toys. This is where a major difference between stationary and online retail becomes apparent: the complaint rate in stationary retail is much lower than for cheap products from the internet. AGES analyses around 500 toy samples every year. In the case of safety defects that pose a "serious risk", the long-term average complaint rate is around 4 per cent. In a recent Europe-wide focus campaign on "activity toys" such as swings, slides or climbing towers from the Internet, however, 100 per cent of the products had to be withdrawn from circulation due to violations of the strict safety requirements of the EU Toy Safety Regulation. Serious safety defects include, for example, small parts that can be detached and swallowed in toys for children under 36 months or magnetic toys and excessive kinetic energy in projectile toys. Therefore, pay attention to quality when buying toys.
Internet controls are being expanded and official cooperation strengthened
The BAVG sees national and international networking as the greatest lever for efficiently expanding the control of online trade. Cooperation in official internet controls is therefore being continuously expanded with other authorities, AGES and the non-profit organisation ÖIAT in order to ensure safe products and transparency for consumers in the same way as in bricks-and-mortar retail. In technical terms, AGES is already testing the use of artificial intelligence (AI tools) for risk-based controls as part of the FFG-funded research project "eMarketshield" in order to utilise synergies in Austria and jointly develop solutions for online research, control planning and sampling. The aim of the BAVG is to adapt the resources for controls to purchasing behaviour and to strengthen cooperation between all market surveillance authorities, including customs.