WISH. Accused by the DGCCRF of offering for sale products that do not comply with European standards, or even dangerous, the American sales platform will be dereferenced from search engines in France.
This is a first in Europe. According to information revealed by our colleagues from Parisian, the General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) has just ordered the various search engines and application stores (the appstores) to proceed as soon as possible with the delisting of the Wish site and application in France. A historic and spectacular decision, but with quite limited scope in practice. The American marketplace is accused by the authorities of offering dangerous items for sale that do not comply with European standards and above all of having done nothing to remedy this situation. This is the second time that Wish (and by extension the company ContextLogic Inc. which operates this marketplace) has drawn the wrath of the DGCCRF. At the end of 2020, the platform had already been targeted by investigation concerning “Deceptive price reduction announcements and fraudulent promotion of well-known brand products not available” on the Wish site and app. As an anecdote, after notifying the platform of the presence of these illicit products, the DGCCRF noted that, even once removed, they often reappeared on Wish… under another name! Annoying. The DGCCRF then transmitted the result of its investigations to the Public Prosecutor at the Paris judicial tribunal.
Non-compliant and dangerous products
This time, Wish is pinned down as part of a survey that the DGCCRF carries out each year on compliance and security of products sold on marketplaces and online platforms. A market whose turnover exceeded 112 billion euros in France in 2020 and which directly competes with the activity of brands and physical stores. “The investigation carried out in 2020, renewing two similar investigations in 2018 and 2019, again highlighted high levels of breaches. Thus, in 2020, for 129 product tests carried out, more than 60% were in an anomaly (28 % non-compliant and 32% non-compliant and dangerous) “, notes the DGCCRF. In the case of Wish, out of the 140 products offered for sale on the marketplace and analyzed by the SCL (Joint Laboratory Service) at the request of the DGCCRF, 90% of the electrical devices analyzed were considered dangerous, as were 62% of costume jewelry and 45% of toys. In practice, “some toys were made with small elements that came off too easily, at the risk of being ingested and causing suffocation in the little ones”, specifies the Ministry of the Economy, quoted by Le Parisien. “The same goes for electrical appliances, 95% of which were non-compliant, with 90% risky products. Example: the Christmas electric garland, capable of igniting the Christmas tree … and (setting fire to) homes.
The administration therefore enjoined Wish to comply and considering that it had not received in return “satisfactory answer” decided to go the hard way by imposing a delisting of the website by search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant …) and of the Wish application for application download platforms (AppStore, Google Play Store…). This decision could however be annulled in the event that Wish chooses to comply with French law and comply with European safety and quality standards.
A symbolic blockage, but not unavoidable
“There is no reason to tolerate online what we do not accept in physical stores”, declared Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, interviewed by the daily Le Parisien. “These players are flouting product safety regulations. It is unacceptable”, continued the minister in a communicated. Before concluding (temporarily?) On FranceInfo this morning: “either Wish complies with the rules of consumer protection, or we will go even further and go from de-listing to banning the Wish site on French territory”. A measure that could imply that access to the Wish.com website is filtered, blocked and blacklisted by ISPs on French territory. Because it is one of the paradoxes of the spectacular decision taken by the DGCCRF concerning the delisting of the Wish.com site and the Wish application: for users of this American online platform which has made a name for itself by capitalizing on the provision of low-cost products most often made in China, access to the Wish.com site remains possible. And neophytes looking for thrills (and low prices) will also be able to continue (if they are somewhat tech-savvy) to find, at their own risk, Wish on search engines active outside France, by using a simple VPN and by selecting a relay server located abroad.
A warning to the market
If the sanction taken by the DGCCRF is obviously bad news for Wish in terms of visibility and notoriety a few days before Black Friday and a few weeks from the holidays (and therefore the purchase of gifts) at the end of the year, this decision can also be interpreted as a serious warning addressed to other online marketplaces (such as AliExpress, Joom, Amazon MarketPlace…) which do not always shine by the excellence of the products offered for sale. On October 15, 2021, the DGCCRF thus indicated that concerning the 2020 edition of its survey on products sold in marketplaces, of the product tests carried out, more than 60% were in an anomaly (28% non-compliant and 32% non-compliant and dangerous). As pointed out, Capital, the magazine of the channel M6, in a program broadcast on September 15, 2019, many marketplaces (today in the sights of the DGCCRF) have chosen, in order to win and remain competitive, to apply a magic formula (at least on paper). They just put manufacturers and customers in touch. The vast majority of them offer products “made in China” at unbeatable prices; they have no stocks, no logistics or delivery costs… But all of this comes at a cost, most often paid at a high price by the consumer.