Market approach to consumer protection obligates sellers to respond to the demands of the customers especially providing safety and high quality products. These demands include disclosure of ingredients of products, to responsible advertising of goods and services. Free market economy has created competition where no single product monopolises the market, and this means that customers must be protected from these competitors to ensure that they get the best from whichever product they choose. The customers need an assurance that their choice of product is effective and safe as advertised. In market approach to consumer protection, it is acknowledged that customers may not have the ability or time to make informed choices or may not have viable alternatives available (Feldman, 1980). This approach therefore advocates more definition and enforcement of privacy standards from the government.
However, the market approach still fails to protect customers from rogue marketers because there it has some several bottlenecks. To start with, it is expensive and almost impossible for the manufacturers to provide consumers with full product information meaning there are bits of information that are usually left out. Secondly, some manufacturers are not willing to disclose information that may end up compromising the market share of their products. For example, no manufacturer of cooking oil can disclose that their product contains any level of cholesterol. They will label their products as cholesterol free, but traces of cholesterol can still be found in their products. Finally, some products are too complex to be understood by customers. This means that even if the manufacturers make their disclosures, some customers will end up buying the same unsafe or low quality products due to their ignorance and inability to understand the disclosures (Feldman, 1980). Others do not even have time to check at the consumer protection literature.
References
Feldman, P. (1980). Consumer Protection Law: Problems and Prospects. NY: West Publishing
