Phuket Commerce Chief Woranit Aphiratjirawong assigned the team to venture across the island to check vendors and their New Year gift baskets on offer, reported the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department (PR Phuket).
The team comprises Commerce office officials, along with officers from the economic and trade development group, from the Weights and Measures Branch Office Division 3 branch, from the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office (PPHO) and the Office of the Consumer Protection Board (OCPB) Phuket branch.
The officers inspected gift baskets for sale and their contents, ensuring that all products were labelled correctly, all products complied with weights and measures requirements, no products were past their expiration dates, that prices of gift baskets were properly displayed and that the baskets did not contain alcoholic beverages and the promotional materials did not promote alcohol as part of the gift basket contents.
Under the Alcohol Control Act, it is illegal to bundle alcohol with group product sales and it is illegal to promote alcohol as part of a package deal.
The aim of the checks was to ensure that consumers were not exploited during the Christmas and New Year 2023 season, Ms Woranit explained.
“In this regard, after inspecting both department stores and general stores in the Phuket area, it was found that the situation in terms of quantity still had enough products for sale to meet consumer demand,” Ms Woranit said.
“It was found that the trend of buying products this year was the group of products for health with environmentally conscious packaging,” she added.
“And consumers prefer to buy gift baskets with an average starting price of B299 to B999,” she said.
Regardless, Ms Woranit urged vendors to display prices clearly and to strictly comply with all legal aspects of selling gift baskets, namely those listed in Prices of Goods and Services Act, B.E. 2542.
“If consumers encounter problems with any products, they can immediately notify the point of sale,” she said.
“And the public can report offences relating to displaying the selling price of goods to the Economic Control and Development Group at Phuket Provincial Commercial Office,” Ms Woranit said.
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