EU e-commerce plans: consumer groups call for urgent and ambitious action

The EU Commission has published today its e-commerce Communication to tackle the many problems consumers face when shopping online. BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation, welcomes the plan and calls for swift action to enforce rigorously existing laws around chemicals, online platforms and product safety and to wrap up important legislation.

The EU and its Member States should be bolder in case of non-compliance, for instance making online webshops liable for what they sell and restrict access to the worst performers, if they fail to act to protect consumers against unsafe products.

Agustín Reyna, Director General of BEUC, commented:

“Consumer groups’ tests show that plenty of products sold online such as toys and textiles are unsafe. If the EU is serious about protecting consumers and hitting the road to decarbonisation, it must ensure everybody plays by the same rules. Consumer groups fully support the European Commission and national authorities launching enforcement actions, like the ongoing one we launched against Temu and the one announced today against Shein.”

“Tackling e-commerce is like solving a puzzle with many pieces. The EU has recently adopted many ambitious laws that can help to better protect consumers, such as the Digital Services Act to rid online marketplaces of rogue traders, or rules making products safer or allowing trustworthy green claims only. We are ready to work with authorities so they can play their part and adopt effective corrective measures and deterrent sanctions. Decision makers must also get down to work to wrap up legislation such as reforming customs, better protecting consumers online and ban toxic chemicals.”

Consumers’ expectations
BEUC and its members expect the upcoming pieces of legislation to be ambitious, namely:

• The EU Market Surveillance Regulation needs urgently to be revised to make online marketplaces liable for safety - by including them into the definition of ‘economic operators’.
• The upcoming Digital Fairness Act must update consumer law to ease the burden of proof of wrongdoings and better protect consumers against harmful commercial practices online such as dark patterns, addictive design, influencer marketing and unfair personalisation.
• The Customs review must better protect consumers from dangerous and non-compliant products imported from third countries. The Action Plan announced the EU will allocate 100 million euros and will advance the EU agency for customs.
• The review of the Consumer Protection and Cooperation network (CPC) regulation must grant the EU Commission enforcement powers.
• The revision of the EU’s flagship chemicals regulation REACH is urgent to reduce consumer exposure to harmful substances.

Background
In 2024, BEUC launched with 17 of its members an enforcement action against Temu, after we identified the platform was breaching the DSA on several counts. In addition, test results carried out since end of 2023 by consumer groups from the BEUC network have exposed the shoddy safety of certain products on sale on Temu.