A popular clothing and home goods company has admitted to breaching the Fair Trading Act and has been fined $8,500 for marketing and selling shawls advertised as silk blend pashmina, when they were not.
Between February 2007 and November 2007 Ezibuy sold the shawls with labels describing the product as a "pashmina" with "70% pashmina and 30% silk". Independent tests undertaken as part of the Commerce Commission's investigation showed that the shawl was actually made of cotton and polyester, with no pashmina or silk content.
Pashmina is a premium product and shawls made from 100% pashmina can sell for up to $425. Ezibuy retailed their "pashmina" shawls for $19.95 and sold over 11,000 falsely labelled shawls in Australia and New Zealand. Of those 3,870 were sold in New Zealand.
"The marketing and labelling of the shawls would have led consumers to believe that they were getting a good deal with a quality product at a bargain price, when they were being misled about the true nature of the material," Commerce Commission Director, Fair Trading, Adrian Sparrow said.
Last year the Commission reached an out of court settlement with Ezibuy over mohair throws which Ezibuy advertised as "pure mohair" when they were acrylic/mohair blend.
"The Commission expects businesses to put into place proper compliance processes to check that the labelling and marketing of their stock is accurate," Sparrow said.
"Consumers rightly rely on the information supplied by business to make their purchasing decisions and the onus is on business to ensure that the information supplied is accurate."
