Attitudes, Awareness, and Use of the Consumer Protection Act Among Retail Furniture Consumers in the Umlazi Township, South Africa

Introduction

It is the duty of the South African government to protect its citizens from being abused by businesses through activities that violate their rights. Various legal frameworks were set up in the past to try to enforce such protection. Consumer movements (CM) also performed key tasks in protecting consumer rights through activism and organising public protests. However, their efforts to assist consumers were limited to protest campaigns rather than to holding businesses accountable for supplying defective, unsafe and harmful products. Thus, the CPA was introduced in March 2011 and signed into law in April 2011. The CPA seeks to regulate all consumer related matters in the marketplace but consumers still experience difficulties in obtaining redress when faced with retailers’ unfair dealings. Nonetheless, the crucial point to consider is why consumers continue to be exploited by unscrupulous retailers despite there being a consumer law called the Consumer Protection Act. It is therefore important to examine whether the rights of ordinary consumers are protected by the CPA or not.

According to Keller and Swaminathan (2020), consumers purchase products to satisfy a need. Terblanche et al. (2016) expressed the view that consumers anticipate purchased products to be of excellent quality, in working order, able to satisfy their needs and exceed their expectations. Nonetheless, defective products are still being sold to consumers. Often, consumers do not detect product imperfections until the product has been used (Loubser & Reid, 2012). Defective goods should be returned to the retailer for either exchange or refund (Otto et al., 2014) but complaints of this nature irritate retailers who are reluctant to refund or exchange goods at the expense of their profits (Otto et al., 2014). According to De Stadler (2016), many consumers are not keen to complain to retailers as they think that nothing will be done to address their grievances. Unresolved consumer complaints may, at times, compel consumers to replace defective products at their own cost. This behaviour indirectly relieves the retailer of accountability. Such acts contribute to the infringement of consumer rights by retailers with no backlash from consumer protection legislation.

The aim of the chapter was therefore to examine the attitudes, awareness and the use of CPA by retail consumers in Umlazi township in South Africa. The chapter was imperative to ascertain whether the establishment of the CPA made consumer protection a reality or whether it became one of the government’s futile exercises.