This week (15-17 November) will see product safety stakeholders and advocates from around the world gather to meet in Brussels for International Product Safety Week.
Product Safety Week is a biannual event, hosted by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice and Consumers, and brings together product safety experts from across the globe to identify trends, focus on priorities and most importantly collaborate on solutions to help ensure consumers stay safe when purchasing goods.
This year the focus of Product Safety Week will be on “New horizons for product safety”. It will include sessions on new trends in e-commerce with the eBay Regulatory team providing a keynote. Our team will also be joining a panel discussion on “Online market surveillance: challenges and opportunities”. The panel will reflect on the latest developments and challenges in the market surveillance of products sold online and analyse how authorities, marketplaces and other stakeholders can contribute to ensuring the safety of products sold online.
A focus of our discussions will be on our ongoing collaborations with safety authorities around the globe (including the ACCC) on initiatives like the Regulatory Portal as well as our signed commitments under various Product Safety Pledges. Looking to new horizons, our team will be discussing new technology and approaches, including AI, that eBay is investing in to ensure that consumers can continue to shop with confidence on our marketplace.
eBay has also been a driving force behind a new pilot initiative which will see consumer organisations in the EU participate in the product safety pledge alongside regulators, online retailers and marketplaces. eBay will join the EU Commission in launching the pilot in later November with the potential for this initiative to be followed in other markets including Australia.