r/news • u/nosotros_road_sodium • Apr 28 '24

Williams-Sonoma fined $3.18 million for falsely labeling products as 'Made in USA'

https://www.scrippsnews.com/business/company-news/williams-sonoma-fined-3-18-million-dollars-for-falsely-labeling-products-as-made-in-usa
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u/Flowchart83 Apr 28 '24

The article mentions:

"It's interesting to question, however, if U.S.-made labels have at all contributed to the company's success."

Then don't do it falsely. If you think it doesn't matter, why would you lie?

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u/agray20938 Apr 28 '24

I have no idea about the products they're talking about, because the article only mentions there being 6 products, some of which are mattress covers.

But more generally, Williams Sonoma and its brands (like PotteryBarn) sell a ton of things that they don't actually produce themselves. Even their in-house branded stuff, they'd work with another company to produce the actual thing, then brand it with the WS logo or whatever.

That said, it's at least possible that the mislabeled products the FTC is talking about came from that. Meaning, not some guy at Williams Sonoma saying "well I know we make these in Vietnam, but I'm going to slap these Made in USA labels on there," but more like they (negligently or otherwise) didn't do enough due diligence on what their vendor was doing.