Online Shopping: What Should be Done to Eliminate Malicious Businesses?

Editorial

17:05 JST, January 31, 2026

There is no end to the number of cases in which unsafe and poor-quality items, such as electrical appliances, are mixed in with other products sold on online shopping sites, leading to accidents. It is essential to eliminate malicious businesses and protect consumers.

The domestic e-commerce market, including online shopping, has reached about ¥26 trillion. With expectations for further growth, it can be said that it has become an important part of consumers’ daily lives.

With the expansion of the market, the increase in the number of accidents has become a problem. In 2024, about 1,300 cases were reported as “serious product incidents” that resulted in consumer deaths or fires. Of the cases in which it was known how the products involved had been acquired, about 30% had been bought online.

In recent years, there were numerous accidents, including injuries involving snowblowers and folding beds, as well as fires involving power banks and portable power stations.

Although low prices are a key feature of online shopping, products with quality or safety problems are sometimes sold.

Four laws, including the Consumer Product Safety Law, establish safety standards for about 500 kinds of goods and require manufacturers to display safety marks on products that have met those standards.

However, some malicious businesses openly sell products without safety marks or even forge them.

For overseas businesses, it is not uncommon for consumers to be unable to contact a company, even if they try to do so following an accident. There have reportedly been cases in which there were no employees in charge of safety management in Japan, and the contact information was fictitious.

The central government is working to eliminate poor-quality products and businesses engaging in illegal activities through such means as monitoring online shopping sites.

Revisions to the four laws, which came into effect in December last year, regulate overseas businesses that were previously unregulated, requiring them to have employees responsible for safety management stationed in Japan. The government also now requires other products, such as infant toys associated with a risk of accidental ingestion, to have safety marks.

When violations are found, the revised laws allow for the public disclosure of names of businesses and their employees responsible for safety management. If businesses cannot deal with accidents and other cases, it is now possible to demand that the operators of online shopping sites not list the products in question.

It is crucial for the government to know exactly what businesses are listing their products on online shopping sites and who their employees responsible for safety management in Japan are. It is also necessary to strongly deal with illegal activities.

Regarding sales problems, the government, the operators of online shopping sites and others are also advancing efforts to share information on malicious businesses that list their products and inform consumers. It is hoped that they will further strengthen the screening of businesses and the monitoring of listed products.

Consumers should also be mindful of whether products seem too cheap and check whether Japanese language support is available.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan. 31, 2026)