Conduct sweeping, E-commerce Crackdown on Stores Selling Shady Coronavirus Products

Last updated on May 13th, 2021 at 05:53 am

For the sake of combating fraudulent and irresponsible traders, a number of e-commerce companies in Indonesia clean up incompatible accounts in their platforms. Online store accounts that selling unproven coronavirus (COVID-19) health equipment and suspicious medical prescriptions are being monitored.

As stated by Tokopedia Vice President of Corporate Communication, Nuraini Razak, it will permanently close thousands of accounts that have been proven to have sold drugs and medical devices at unreasonable prices and information on products that are judged to be inconsequential.

“We also continue to conduct periodic sweeping to ensure products sold in Tokopedia comply with regulations,” Nuraini said.

The solution offered by Tokopedia is to provide a 100 percent discount on service fees to sellers in the health product category and other basic needs. According to her, this can be a trade control for sellers to provide fair prices and maintain the availability of stock of goods amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

On the other hand, Blibli’s Vice President of Public Relations, Yolanda Nainggolan, said Blibli continued to monitor its trading partners to limit the purchase of special products such as masks, antiseptics, hand sanitizers, and basic food items to prevent the stockpiling of goods.

“We will take firm action by giving strong warnings and suspension of products for partners who remain in violation so that the products sold are not accessible to customers,” Yolanda explained.

In addition to drugs and food, Covid-19’s rapid test equipment was also traded at prices ranging from hundreds of thousands to even tens of millions rupiah. This makes e-commerce continue to restrict sellers who do not have a distribution permit.

Another case with Bukalapak’s Head of Corporate Communication, Intan Wibisono, her party claimed to have used a sequence calculation system (algorithm) to read the trading pattern of the seller account. This is one of the way of Bukalapak in order to detect the selller that gave an unfair price.

One of them oversees the sale of the Chloroquein drug which the government says can help cure Covid-19. Intan said that Bukalapak had collaborated with the Ministry of Health and the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) not to sell drug-free or similar drugs.

“We are actively monitoring this and taking down accounts that sell these drugs,” Intan said, Wednesday, March 25.