Seoul city official Park Sang-jin told AFP that they have requested a removal of these products from sale, and said that since the city began inspections in April, most platforms have complied with such requests.
So far, Seoul authorities said they have inspected 93 products and found that almost half of them contained toxic substances. These items include children’s watches and colouring pencils.
In response to queries from CNA, Shein said it takes product safety “very seriously”.
“Our suppliers are required to comply with the controls and standards we have put in place, and we work closely with international third-party testing agencies … to regularly carry out testing to ensure suppliers’ compliance to our product safety standards”, said a Shein spokesperson.
The spokesperson added that the company had conducted over 400,000 chemical safety tests with these agencies over the past year.
“Upon learning of any claim against our products, we immediately remove the product(s) from our site as a matter of caution whilst conducting our investigation,” the spokesperson said.
“If non-compliance is verified, we will not hesitate to take appropriate follow-up action with the supplier of said product.”
CNA has reached out to Singapore’s Consumer Product Safety Office for comment.
Last month, the European Union added Shein to its list of digital firms that are big enough to come under stricter safety rules – including measures to protect customers from unsafe products, especially those that could be harmful to minors.
Shein and Temu have followed Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba in challenging Amazon, especially by making inroads in the US market.