The Importance of Authorized Canadian Dealers in the Baby Industry

The emergence of third-party marketplaces has given a lot more choice to consumers. However, that choice can comes with a price. It is now possible for anybody in the world to sell directly to the Canadian market. someone across the world, who does not follow Health Canada guidelines, can sell directly to to you. Or, local unauthorized sellers can import inferior items from foreign sellers and manufacturers. They do not need to pass tests to ensure the safety of the product or be experienced sellers in the baby industry. With a few hours on the internet and a small investment they can have an overseas company manufacture the product they desire, usually copying reputable brands with inferior quality products.

The main determinate for whether these products get into the hands of Canadian consumers is an algorithm which considers the third-party sellers past selling record, the products recent selling performance, and reviews. The products performance is affected by how much marketing efforts go behind the product, such as product images, description, and landing page design, and the reviews can be bought. All in all, how good of an online salesperson these third-party sellers are affects if this product gets into your baby's hands more than other factors. Anything can be sold on these marketplaces and people's trials and errors determine how much to favour these products in search results relative to other items (even relative to Health Canada approved items!) So in a sense, they use the public as Guinee pigs to test which products appear first in the search results, rather than testing the product out before! A large marketplace is not an expert in any one industry. They are experts in using algorithms to monitor trends and best sellers, and to offer these items to the next person who enters a text in the search field.

Recent statistics reveal a startling trend: approximately 50% of the top sellers on Amazon as of 2024 originate from countries outside their host country, with a significant portion hailing from China. What's particularly notable is that these companies lack a physical presence or employees within Canada or the USA; they simply utilize Amazon's fulfillment network to ship their products. Without a local presence, they sidestep the need for liability insurance, thus evading potential legal repercussions in these markets. This setup poses a formidable challenge for Canadian and American small businesses, as offshore competitors benefit from significantly lower overhead costs and proximity to manufacturing facilities. Furthermore, it also poses safety risks to consumers in Canada and the United States. Consequently, this dynamic not only jeopardizes the competitiveness of local designers and creators but also threatens the long-term quality and distinctiveness of products within our countries. Moreover, it contributes to job loss domestically as these offshoes competitors often simply copy top selling items from innovative Canadians and Americans. For a deeper understanding of these practices and their implications, I recommend watching this insightful interview: Exposing the Dark Side of Amazon.

Contrast that between the way authorized dealers of Canadian baby products operate. We sell brands only after they have been approved by Health Canada's rigorous tests and standards. Canadian authorized dealers have a more focused selection of products for many baby categories because we only offer items we trust and would use on our own children. We do not want our customers to be used as Guinea pigs. We would rather sell products that has been tried and improved for many years, than use babies as test subjects. We keep the best interest of babies in mind. Specialized dealers put quality, the reputation of the brands they sell, and Health Canada guidelines above algorithms. As a specialized dealer, you can be confident in everything you find in our stores because it has been hand-selected. As a specialized dealer, we have enough experience to filter out products before they even enter our store. We use our experience to offer a selection that is convenient, practical, and most importantly safe!

Authorized dealers also monitor recalls, and we monitor whether the products are being purchased from the manufacturer. For example, since anyone can sell on third party marketplaces. It is possible that they can be supplying imitations. Whenever a product shows that it is available form X number of sellers, it is hard to guarantee that the product is authentic since many of those sellers are not authorized Canadian dealers, and some of them are not even located in Canada! We can say from experience that we have ordered imitations from these marketplaces which were being advertised as the authentic. It happened because the price of an item we sell was so low that we ordered it for ourselves to investigate how that was possible. Once we receive the item, we noticed many differences between that product and the original one we were selling. Most consumers would never be able to tell the difference since it would most likely be their first and only time buying that item and since they would not have the original to compare it with. The imitation was very good! To make matters worse, when we tried to leave a review, warning buyers to beware of purchasing from third party sellers, especially foreign ones, our review was rejected! As an authorized dealer of Canadian baby products, we also use the feedback loop to keep improving local brands. As we receive comments, returns or complaints, we send this information back to the manufacturers, who continuously improve the products. Most fly by night sellers on third party marketplaces, will not even the around 5 or 10 years down the road to implement these improvements. We sell brands which have been around for 20, 30 or 50 years and more! We have personally been selling these brands for over 40 years!

This article is not meant to diminish the efforts of up-and-coming brands with good intentions, but rather to indicate the importance of specialized and authorized dealers, and most importantly, your local shops who have their community's best interests in mind since they are from that community! We hope you keep us in mind with your future purchases for your children, just as we keep your interests in mind when furnishing our stores with great products!

Warm regards,

The Goldtex team