Even as Walmart hosts its annual U.S. Manufacturing Summit, designed to open its doors to hundreds of entrepreneurs hoping to sell the retailer their made-in-America products, a watchdog group is charging that "the world's biggest retailer is ... still making deceptive Made in the USA claims over a year after it promised to clean up its act."
TruthInAdvertising.org released a statement yesterday charging that "a new sampling of more than 100 Made in the USA misrepresentations found on Walmart.com...proves the retail giant continues to deceive consumers. Products on the Walmart website, ranging from markers to baseball caps to diapers, are listed as Made in the USA though they are actually either wholly manufactured in places such as Korea and China or Made in the U.S. with imported parts — a composition that, according to the FTC standard, cannot be advertised with an unqualified 'Made in the USA' claim. Other items have conflicting U.S.-origin information on the same webpage."
The watchdog group says that when Walmart was confronted with such issues in the past, "the company initially characterized the misrepresentations as 'coding errors' and then blamed suppliers for providing outdated information."
The group says that it "has alerted the FTC and Walmart to its latest findings."
As TruthInAdvertising was making its charges, Walmart was out with a press release saying that "the 2016 U.S. Manufacturing Summit and Open Call, with companies attending from more than 40 states and nearly 800 meetings taking place, are part of Walmart’s commitment to investing in American jobs, having pledged in 2013 to purchase an additional $250 billion in U.S. made products by 2023."
TruthInAdvertising.org released a statement yesterday charging that "a new sampling of more than 100 Made in the USA misrepresentations found on Walmart.com...proves the retail giant continues to deceive consumers. Products on the Walmart website, ranging from markers to baseball caps to diapers, are listed as Made in the USA though they are actually either wholly manufactured in places such as Korea and China or Made in the U.S. with imported parts — a composition that, according to the FTC standard, cannot be advertised with an unqualified 'Made in the USA' claim. Other items have conflicting U.S.-origin information on the same webpage."
The watchdog group says that when Walmart was confronted with such issues in the past, "the company initially characterized the misrepresentations as 'coding errors' and then blamed suppliers for providing outdated information."
The group says that it "has alerted the FTC and Walmart to its latest findings."
As TruthInAdvertising was making its charges, Walmart was out with a press release saying that "the 2016 U.S. Manufacturing Summit and Open Call, with companies attending from more than 40 states and nearly 800 meetings taking place, are part of Walmart’s commitment to investing in American jobs, having pledged in 2013 to purchase an additional $250 billion in U.S. made products by 2023."
- KC's View:
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I have no idea if Walmart is guilty of the new charges that TruthInAdvertising is making. I do know that Walmart was guilty of transgressions in the past, which doesn't exactly sill me with confidence about the present and the future.
The thing is, there is no excuse for this. And in the end, Walmart can't blow its own horn about its Made in the USA intentions and then blame other entities when it gets things wrong. Walmart is the retailer, Walmart has to take the responsibility for insuring that what is says is so actually is so. Put the systems in place so that mistakes are not made.
it is that simple.
