Shopee says it has zero tolerance for banned items

According to foreign media reports, Shopee Philippines issued a statement saying that it has a zero-tolerance attitude towards banned items marked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and emphasized that Shopee will comply with local consumer market laws and regulations.

Recently, the EcoWaste Coalition, a toxic substances watchdog group, pointed out in an investigation report that four e-commerce platforms, including Shopee, promoted some products that were found to contain the toxic substance mercury.

The group said that a day before the 9.9 sale , Shopee , MyBenta.com, Carousell and Lazada displayed a total of 15 product listings for mercury sphygmomanometers, which are used to measure blood pressure. In addition , Lazada and Shopee had seven listings for mercury thermometers.

The Eco-Waste Alliance said that mercury metal is a "highly toxic" chemical product, and the online sale of mercury sphygmomanometers and thermometers violates the Minamata Convention signed by the Department of Health (DoH) and the Philippines in 2008. The organization said it will continue to pay attention to the incident of Shopee selling mercury-containing products.

After the EcoWaste Coalition issued its statement, Shopee removed nine listings for mercury-containing devices. Subsequently, Shopee issued an announcement on Viber on Wednesday, saying; "Shopee has a strict zero-tolerance approach to the sale of any products that have been warned by the FDA on our platform... All products on Shopee must go through a series of screenings. Any listing that is not cleared due to regulatory issues or other violations of our terms of use will be deleted." Shopee pointed out, "We comply with local regulations in every market where we operate and require our sellers to comply with local regulations and our own strict policies."

In a statement on Thursday, Shopee said it had removed products containing mercury metal from its shelves. In addition, Shopee said it would continue to deepen its cooperation with environmental organizations to ensure that toxic products are not available on the platform. Shopee stressed that it will take active measures to blacklist any related keywords to block merchants from selling toxic products on the Shopee platform. Although in rare cases, some toxic products evade the screening process, Shopee will take immediate action to prevent the sale of toxic products to the greatest extent possible.

Shopee

the Philippines

Prohibited items