How to Handle Product Recalls in Your eBiz:
The Game Plan.
By Chris Malta Home EBiz Product Sourcing Expert.
If you’re like most e-tailers, you’ve never experienced a product recall in
your eCommerce business, and you’re hoping you never will. But as evidenced by
the recent surge in the number of product safety recalls, one of your offerings
could be recalled at any time and you need to be prepared to properly handle
such an event. Affirms Dennis Blasius, of the Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC), The retailer plays a critical role in these recalls we can’t
do it without their cooperation.
Safety Awareness Your first job is to be aware of safety hazards in the
products you offer. If your customers are injured using your merchandise or
even if you just have concerns about the safety of an item it’s your legal
responsibility to report that to the CPSC. You can do this at their website,
CPSC.gov.
By regularly checking this website, or Recall.gov, you can monitor products
that are being recalled due to safety risks. Or you can sign up at
www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx to have new product recalls emailed to you directly,
the moment they’re publicly released.
The Game Plan If you find that a product you sell, or sold previously, has been
recalled, you need to immediately take steps to protect your consumers (as well
as your business):
Stop the sale of the product. Online, this is as simple as pulling the
product from your website, store, or auctions. Contact the recall coordinator
(the firm conducting the recall) for instructions on what to do next. You can
check the CPSC’s website to find the coordinator’s contact info usually it
will be included (along with an 800 number) in the specific press release that
applies to your recall. Typically, you’ll be asked to identify the number of
products you’ve received, the number you’ve distributed to consumers, and the
number you have left in inventory. Contact your customers and inform them of
the situation. (Email usage is encouraged, to notify end users as quickly as
possible.) As an Internet retailer, determining which customers purchased the
recalled item from you should not be difficult. By the nature of the
transaction, you’ve collected far more info than a physical retailer. The
recall coordinator will often provide a specific letter with wording that
describes the problem and gives consumers directions for returning it.
In some cases, you’ll be responsible for receiving your customer returns and
passing them onto the manufacturer. In other instances, you may simply provide
your customers with information on how to return the product to the
manufacturer directly. It’s most often up to the vendor and the retailer to
work out the scenario that will be most convenient for consumers and will
result in the greatest response.
It’s very common for the responsible firm to refund retailers for the recalled
products, especially for goods they still have in stock or have accepted as
customer returns. Such reimbursement is not required by law, however, so this
is a point that you’ll have to work out with the recall coordinator. Remember
that it’s in a supplier’s best interest to take care of their retailers, and
most will work with you to find a solution that satisfies both parties. The
most important thing is to work together to resolve the problem in a way that’s
best for the public, and move on.
Everyone’s Job While the CPSC is the primary agent at work for consumer product
safety, their resources are finite. They aren’t able to be everywhere all the
time, so they depend on every link in the distribution chain to help them keep
unsafe products out of consumers’ hands. States Blasius, We rely on individual
retailers to both keep their eyes open for emerging product hazards and to
cooperate in getting risky products off the market. Doing so is mandated by
federal law, and quite simply, it’s the right thing to do.
