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Supply Chain Vulnerabilities: E-commerce

E-commerce has transformed global retail by enabling the direct sale and shipment of goods to consumers across borders. While this model has expanded access and efficiency for legitimate businesses, it has also created new vulnerabilities that are systematically exploited by illicit traders. The scale, speed, and fragmentation of online commerce have made e-commerce a high-risk environment for the sale of illegal and unsafe goods.

As part of its broader series on supply chain vulnerabilities, TRACIT identifies e-commerce as a critical enabler of illicit trade. Across a series of reports, TRACIT documents structural weaknesses in online platforms that are exploited across sectors and jurisdictions.

• Illicit online trade extends well beyond counterfeit consumer goods to include unauthorised medicines, illegal pesticides, unsafe products, and other goods posing direct risks to public health and safety.
• Reliance on voluntary and self-regulatory approaches has failed to curb illicit activity at scale, particularly given the level of operational control platforms exercise over transactions.
• Weak seller verification, limited monitoring of listings, and fragmented enforcement across jurisdictions create systemic vulnerabilities in online sales channels.
• Digital platforms increasingly shape transactions by controlling visibility, payments, and logistics, yet are often regulated as neutral intermediaries.

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Featured reports: Analyzing illicit trade in e-commerce

Foundational report on supply chain vulnerabilities

In TRACIT’s foundational work on supply chain vulnerabilities, e-commerce consistently emerges as a high-risk channel for illicit trade. E-commerce-related risks are documented across the report, reflecting the systemic nature of online trade vulnerabilities.

Access the report here

The landscape​ of lawlessness online
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TRACIT’s forthcoming paper documents recurring shortfalls in how major e-commerce platforms address illicit trade. It highlights persistent gaps between the scale of illicit activity online and the measures currently in place to prevent it, raising questions about the adequacy of existing regulatory, enforcement, and accountability frameworks.​

Access the report here

Tackling the sale of illicit pesticides on e-commerce platforms

This report examines how structural weaknesses in e-commerce operations enable the online sale of illicit pesticides at scale, documenting real-world examples and identifying recurring vulnerabilities that expose platforms to criminal abuse.

Access the report here

Fraudulent advertising online: Emerging risks and consumer fraud
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A joint TRACIT–AAFA report analysing how systemic weaknesses in online advertising and seller onboarding are exploited to market counterfeit and illegal products with limited risk of detection.

Access the report here

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MEDIA

• Blog post: Can the OECD’s Guidelines Help End E-Illicit Trade?
  
• TRACIT endorses the INFORM Consumer Act
• Media release on consumer risk from fraudulent online advertising

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EVENTS

5 April 2024, Paris -TRACIT presented its report, "Tackling the sale of illicit pesticides on e-commerce platforms," at the OECD Working Party on Countering Illicit Trade meeting. 

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POLICY POSITIONS

Submission to the USPTO's Request for Comments on the OECD's Draft Voluntary Guidelines for Countering Illicit Trade in Counterfeit Goods on Online Marketplaces

​​eCommerce and Fraudulent Advertising TRACIT Principles & Positions