The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has collaborated with online trading platforms to wipe out  substandard goods in circulation.

The agency stated that the collaboration was to monitor the  activities of unscrupulous dealers who would want to take advantage of online platforms to make Nigeria a dumping ground for substandard goods.

The Head of Department, Consumer Complaint, SON,  Mrs Mosunmola Samuel, disclosed this recently in Lagos.

She noted that e-commerce was sophisticated and dynamic which in turn made it difficult to track substandard goods since most of the dealers did not have warehouses or fixed addresses.

She said as a result, SON’s collaboration with online traders would help to track down dealers who would want to abuse online platforms to sell their substandard  wares, while urging consumers to always report to SON whenever they had  issues with products bought both online and at the physical markets.

“Most of these online dealers import their products as personal effects as the growth of e-commerce in the Nigerian community is becoming  huge and many steps had been taken for its promotion, but there are still lots to be done to make it operate in accordance with standards in the country.

“This is why we are working assiduously on  collaborating with online merchants to ensure that Nigeria is not a destination for substandard goods,” she said.

“We get the feedback through the head of our public relations and follow up with directives to online merchants to stop sales of such product immediately we get a complaint and they will  pull it down.

“You know with online marketing, you don’t need to have a shop or selling bulk, all you need is just a handfull of those products and you are already in business.”

She pointed out that  e-commerece consumers could get their products from overseas as personal effects and you know in such areas, SON could not directly stop the importation until the products imported as personal products were brought online for sell to Nigerian consumers.

She said that it was based on such issues that the organisation  was  canvassing to be at the ports for on- the -spot inspection and testing.

She said that SON had notified sister-agencies on the need to step up their ante in the nation’s bid to combat  menace of substandard goods as the work of standards remained  a collective fight by all and sundry.

She, however,  urged online merchants to strictly adhere to quality products and services to achieve inclusive growth.

“The world all over is about standards and we are working tirelessly to educate Nigerians so as to be abreast with global trend.

“On e-commerce, we have so many operating on different platforms and if these products are not registered with our product registration, it means that they are not complying with the  requirements of our act.

“So we need to check and find out where these products are coming from and for every products coming into the country, there is always a major channel,” she said.

The SON official said that the organisation was appreciative of feedbacks from consumers as “We are happy when consumers give us feedbacks, we the feedbacks showed  the  level of confidence reposed in it and the Federal  Government.

“We are proud for the trust in us to start our consumer protection mandate as it also helps us  develop and introduce new standards,” she stated.