Consumer Reactions To Product Recalls

It is not uncommon to hear about another consumer product or food item being recalled because of safety concerns. The manufacturer usually offers a replacement, refund, or repair, and some media outlets briefly inform the public about it. What are the reactions of people to such recalls? Do many people actually return the product, or do few even hear about the recall? Read on to learn more about consumer reactions to recalls of this type...

In many recalls, only a minority of the recalled consumer products are actually returned. According to a report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2004, the GAO determined that only 36-38% of the food involved in Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recalls during 2003 was returned. The GAO also found that FDA and USDA efforts to notify customers of recalls may be insufficient.

The rate at which products recalled via the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) are returned may be even lower. The details of a bill provided on the New York State Assembly web site indicates that only sixteen percent of consumer products recalled in 1997 were returned, two percent less than the previous year. It also states that more recent data of this type is unavailable. USA Today reported in 2006 that under two percent of the laptop computer batteries sold by Lenovo had been returned, although they had been recalled almost one month earlier.

However, it should be kept in mind that some peoples' reactions may be to abandon or dispose of affected products rather than returning them, especially if they are of little value. According to a report issued by the CPSC in 2003, a study performed in 1978 found that products which are useful for less than two years (on average) and/or valued at less than $2.00 are much less likely to be returned.

The above-mentioned study also determined that the level of danger presented by the products had little relation to how effective the recall was, and that a variety of other factors and product characteristics had a greater impact. It found that recalls involving more than one-hundred thousand individual products or items which had been sold for a period of longer than five years had lower effectiveness as well.

What can be done to improve the public reaction to product recalls? It appears that part of the solution should be to maximize consumer awareness of them. A petition to the CPSC from the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) called for product registration cards to be enhanced and included with all products for children, so that parents can be more easily made aware of recalls. Greater media coverage and efforts by retail stores to notify shoppers of recalls would also be likely to improve consumer reactions.

Sources:

1. GAO, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0551.pdf

2. NY State Assembly, http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=a8440

3. CPSC, http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/FOIA/FOIA03/os/RecallEffectiveness.pdf

4. USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2006-10-23-battery-usat_x.htm

5. CFA, http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/safechildpetition.pdf