Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding consumers against unfair practices by businesses who sell them goods and services. This is often covered by laws.

The General Product Safety Regulations 2005 (GPSR) requires that all products must be safe in their reasonable use. Examples of how a business may comply with this regulation are product testing and adapting to ensure that no injury can be caused in its use, providing appropriate labelling and giving clear instructions on how the product should be used.

The Food Information Regulations 2014 requires food packaging to demonstrate an honest description of the contents of packaged food as to not mislead the customer. This includes nutritional information as well as food composition, e.g. you cannot call sausages ‘pork sausages’ unless they contain at least 42% pork.

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations prevents businesses from harassing or misleading customers to make a sale. This includes making false or misleading messages, missing out important product details, using aggressive sales techniques or using branding features of a competitor.

The Trade Descriptions Act 1968 makes it an offense for businesses to make a sale based on misinformation. This act requires businesses to be more honest in their communications about a product. For example, the size, composition of ingredients, source of raw materials and testing that has been performed on the product.

The impact of unethical marketing can have a damaging impact on consumer health. Examples include faulty goods causing injury, inappropriate labelling could mean people consume food they are allergic to and inappropriate packaging on harmful goods such as medicines may mean they could be consumed by children.

Back to unit 20 homepage