Christmas leathergoods shoppers offered plastic
16/12/2010
Shoppers searching online for leather handbags on the UK sites of Amazon and eBay, as well as on the shopping site of prominent department store chain Debenhams were being offered bags made from synthetic material instead among the results. All three websites allowed potential buyers to specify that the items they wanted to buy were leather, but all three included non-leather bags as products meeting customers’ stated requirements.
Asked by leatherbiz.com to comment, Amazon gave no response, while Debenhams promised to look into the matter. The answer from eBay contained more detail.
The auction site that allows companies and members of the public to sell practically any product for which they believe they can find an online buyer said: “Sellers are required to list items accurately and not post deliberately misleading or false descriptions about their products in their listing. If you have any specific examples where you believe this is happening, then please forward them on and we can investigate and take appropriate action.”
Spokesperson Antonia Pearson went on to suggest that it may be acceptable to eBay for items made from synthetic materials to be included as “faux leather” if sellers list them as such. However, a search for handbags includes an active link that eBay itself has made to leather handbags and, ten days before Christmas, items made from plastic rather than leather were being included there.
Online product searches are usually based on words and sellers are being allowed to misappropriate and misuse leather’s name and reputation in the descriptions to get in front of consumers. After that, it’s buyer beware, as usual, but it’s clear that a search for leather handbags might lead you to a much broader offering that includes synthetics.
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