Many parents opt to buy clothes and shoes online at low prices. But some of these products can no longer be sold.
Buying clothes for babies or their children represents a certain budget. Little ones grow up at breakneck speed, get dirty or have holes in their clothes, and they constantly have to renew their wardrobe. To save money, parents use second-hand sites like Le Bon Coin or Vinted for example, while others buy new clothes at low prices on online sales sites. But this will soon no longer be possible for certain items, which do not meet European standards.
To preserve the health of consumers and that of children in particular, Europe recently required two Chinese giants to stop selling certain products deemed dangerous. A Belgian consumer association has in fact found several undesirable substances such as endocrine disruptors, allergens and other irritating products in 10 of the 25 clothes and shoes intended for children, on the Shein application, reports the magazine 60 million consumers. “In a pair of children’s shoes, we found harmful substances that far exceeded the permitted quantity: five times too much lead and hundreds of times too many phthalates. denounces the spokesperson for the association Julie Frère.
Another well-known site finds itself in the same situation: it is the Chinese site Temu, which since the end of May must comply with European requirements. Other sites are also affected and monitored, such as Amazon, AliExpress and Zalando. The Shein site has more than 100 million European customers and the Temu site records 75 million subscribers per month. They will therefore have to follow the strict rules regarding digital services which apply to large platforms with more than 45 million subscribers.
Concretely, the Shein site will have to indicate how it intends to remove illegal items and prevent the promotion and sale of these prohibited items. The site must also ensure the age of its subscribers, in order to restrict sales and refuse access to younger people. The European Commission specifies that “annual risk assessment reports prepared by Shein must specifically assess any potential adverse effects on the health and safety of consumers, with a focus on the physical and mental well-being of underage users” .