Walmart has removed “Made in USA” labelling from its ecommerce site after Federal Trade Commission probe revealed that the products advertised as manufactured in the US were actually not made in the country.
The FTC did not go ahead with the charges on Walmart as the latter had dropped the “Made in USA” tags from its products on the website.
The FTC had taken up a probe voluntarily in order to prevent consumers from being deceived into believing that the products carrying “Made in USA” label on its website were actually made in the US, reported The Financial Times.
After coming under heavy fire over its business practices, two years ago Walmart had pledged to buy $250bn of US-made products over the next decade in an effort to improve its reputation, reported Fortune.
The FTC investigation on Wamart’s product labeling began in June after it received a tip that the more than 100 products had carried false “Made in USA” label, which misled consumers.
According to the regulator, some of the products did not provide information about product origins and had ambiguous warnings, The Financial Times reported.
FTC was able to strengthen its probe after it found a sandwich bag that was made in Thailand and a toy car that was assembled in the US with a few imported parts from China.
However, FTC has acknowledged the steps taken by Walmart as remedial measures. These measures comprised removal of the “Made in USA” label from all its products online and US-origin claims in product descriptions online, and introduction of steps to remove US-origin claims from advertising materials, The Financial Times reported.
Article published in Retail Business Review on Nov, 2015
