Facebook Eyes Banning Sellers of Subpar Quality Products

Eyeing the caliber of products pitched to Facebook users through its newsfeed, the social media firm said this week that it will give the boot to companies that hawk items that are sub-par in quality or do not arrive on time.

On Tuesday (June 12), The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook is offering a new feature that will allow users to provide feedback on shopping that stems from Facebook ads.

Should a given business get a notable swell of negative commentary, Facebook will offer a chance for the company to address those issues. The litmus test is that the feedback should improve – and if it does not, Facebook will dial back the number of ads available to the company, and they could ultimately get kicked off the site altogether.

The move by Facebook comes roughly three weeks after The WSJ reported that some online storefronts have been charging consumers relatively higher prices than some other companies, such as Alibaba’s AliExpress. Some shoppers have said they have received goods that are of substandard quality.

Facebook said it has set out to warn hundreds of eCommerce companies that have received a marked amount of criticism. The social media company has also been offering tips for businesses that have seen negative ratings, but has also sought to ban companies that are “obvious scammers.”

“There are some companies that are just bad actors, and we have no tolerance for that,” said Sarah Epps, a product marketing director at Facebook. “As soon as we can detect those companies, we enforce against them, but for companies that do want to improve, we want to give them that opportunity.”