Why can sellers sell solar panels that have fake power output claims

[custom_cables]

I recently purchased solar panels on ebay and was shocked when I measured their output. The panels were 300w and the best output I could get (measured) was 150w. These panels are 0.97 square meters each. 

I did some research and was shocked that nearly all the panels on ebay lie about their power output. The best panels in the world are 23% efficient, most on ebay are around 17%. The best that these panels can produce is 170w per square meter. In my case the panels I bought theoretically produce 160w which is pretty close to what I measured.

If buying panels on ebay, do your research. Multiply the square meter area of the panel by 170 and you will get the best watts they will produce. As I had shortened the leads on my 2 panels I could not return them for a refund. I am totally upset that I paid for 600w of panels only to find they will only produce half of that. 

Sadly fake and fraudulent claims on products sold on ebay seem to becoming the norm than the exception. Its about time ebay cracked down on sellers that are breaking the law by selling products fraudulently that are totally misrepresented and bear little resemblence to the claims being made in the listings.

[custom_cables]

I checked the feedback before purchase. 99.2% over hundreds of transactions. I can only assume that most people buying these panels just install them and as they produce power never question how much power. The over heating corner cell on each of these panels were only discovered because I tested them properly and handled them when under load. Most would just install and never realise one of the cells is getting really hot, +60 degrees celsius. I used to get good products of ebay fairly represented and matching their description. In the last month more than 40% of purchases bear little or not resemblence to the listing. Hopefully my feedback on the solar panel purchase will warn off others who think they will get double the power than is actually delivered.

[countessalmirena]

@2306marcus,

99.2% is a poor feedback rating for a high volume seller. I use 99.5% as a cut-off if purchasing from a high-volume seller (as a general rule).

[*tippy*toes*]

If you check the seller's other negative feedback, you can see that others have negged for the same panels, and also for other panels. A couple of the neutrals also said not good things about the panels you bought and other types.

[springyzone]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

From a recent ABC news article:

“Australian consumers are notorious, and known overseas, for caring a lot about price and not caring about quality, and when that happens you get the cheaper product. And the cheaper product is not the better-performing product.”❞

Are we as Australians not embarrassed to have that reputation?

Until there are more people in Australia who care about the quality of what they purchase rather than grabbing the cheapest (and expecting to get something just as good as a brand that's been tested and approved and comes with warranty), this will probably continue. I wonder whether it's something to do with the well-known cynicism of the average Australian... Perhaps Australian consumers think that the higher price of verified and approved brands is a con and that they really can cut out the middleman to buy at a price that they think the item SHOULD cost.

---

There are a lot of products I would never buy on ebay and solar panels are one of them.

But with the quote above, the bit I highlighted in red, just because someone says that about Australians, it does not make it true. I am not saying it definitely isnt.  It might be, I don't know. But I would want to see the surveys and such that prove it. Not surveys that prove if Australians are like that, but surveys that actually prove overseas sellers perceive us that way.

If i had to guess, I would say Australians are known in some circles for not liking tipping, which may translate in some minds as being tight with their money. I also read once that we are used to seeing items on sale so paying full price seems too much. Again, whether that is what overseas people think of us, I do not know.

In fact i suspect overseas folk don't think of us at all very much. Sellers might. But I would like to know if we in fact are any different in our buying habits on ebay to eg the Americans. Do they also buy a lot of things from China?

There may be a suspicion in Australia that brand is not everything and we are being ripped off sometimes by rebadging, where fairly identical products are labelled differently and priced according to brand.

What I have definitely noticed though is that what comes into Australia, what comes into any country, depends very much on government regulations and controls. How things are manufactured in any country will also depend on government regulations and controls.

In that regard, I think it is not Australian consumers who should feel ashamed, it is our government. I have read time and time again of eg medicines being sold here that are banned in USA, where regulations are tighter. The international companies dump the product here and elsewhere because they can.

You have to watch companies, any company, because a lot of them will go to the limit of what they can get away with in the name of profit.

And that's the main fact I am getting from the article.

Dr McCann said some overseas manufacturers were sending poor-quality solar products to Australia, knowing they would not be checked.

“What we can conclude is that in some cases, unfortunately they know that we are not really checking the quality of what is coming into Australia always, and there are a lot of companies out there … some of them are cutting corners where they can to make extra money.”

She said Australia does not have a rigorous culture of testing imported solar products.
“When there's no expectation that your product will be checked, then there's a little bit more flexibility … to ship out the poorer-performing product that inevitably results from any production line.

In other words, I take it that a lot of these items actually fall under the required Australian standard.

They are not being sold here because of some reputation that Australians have for wanting a bargain. They are being sold here because they know they will get away with flouting our laws. There are probably going to be no consequences. They are passing their goods off as in fact meeting Australian standards, so they are lying about the quality.

The sellers are only sending them here as they know their goods are unlikely to be tested. They possibly don't try it in countries  (maybe such as USA) where they are more likely to be picked up if testing is more rigorous.

[countessalmirena]

That's an excellent point, springyzone.

You're right in pointing out that sub-standard solar panels coming into Australia are at least partly a failure for Australian standards to be either set or applied... and there being no real consequences. It is somewhat annoying that Australia, which I think is an ideal country to drive forward renewable energy and the technologies involved in that, is simply not leaping into that opportunity. It's a huge investment but holy cheddar, if the UK can achieve more than 50% renewable energy than energy provided by fossil fuels NOW, what a bewildering situation it is that Australia looks laggardly in comparison!

It's somewhat tricky finding hard data about the reputation of Australian buyers. "Australians/Aussies love a bargain" crops up as a phrase all over the place, but I haven't found a study focusing on how Australian buyers are perceived by people overseas. In two instances I have heard Chinese speaking about it, although I can't remember the exact words - it was one or two years ago, possibly three... and my comprehension of Mandarin could do with some improvement.

One study (August 2017) was commissioned by a particular company with a bargain website:

❝The research, which involved a survey of 750 people from across Australia between the ages 18 to 65, found that just 3 per cent would spend up to $20,000 online, and 1.6 per cent would spend up to one million dollars.

Convenience and finding a good deal are the top drivers for online shopping.

[...]

Here are the key findings from the research:

• 87 per cent of Aussie shoppers have a spending threshold of $5,000 or less for online purchases.
• 57 per cent trust online shopping now more than they used to.
• 28 per cent say they have never felt nervous about online shopping.
• 15 per cent still feel nervous when shopping online and avoid it when they can.
• 67 per cent have recently bought something online to make themselves feel happier.
• 10 per cent hate shopping online and only do it when they have to.
• 84 per cent feel more satisfaction when they buy something and it’s been discounted.
• 27 per cent decide to buy something online versus in-store due to convenience.
• 25 per cent decide to buy something online versus in-store due to better deals.
• 20 per cent decide to buy something online versus in-store due to more selection.
• 5 per cent decide to buy something online versus in-store because they find it more enjoyable.❞

Red bold text mine.

750 people is a very small study for this! Selection method isn't stated, so we can't be sure that this is a random sample, nor are we told of the methodology.  Hence, these "findings" cannot be given full weight.

Hmm... WebAlive (drawing data from Statista and from Australia Post) presents that data in an easy-to-understand way. Clearly ecommerce in Australia is set to increase, but ...

❝As competition in the online Fashion industry grows, more than 30% beauty and fashion shoppers make purchases only if there are promotions or special offers.❞

On that page there is further mention of Australian buyers waiting for discounts and sales, and how this consumer behaviour has to drive retail strategies. There's nothing on that page which compares Australian buyer behaviour or reputation to that of international buyers. I must say that the final statement on that page is perhaps unrealistically optimistic...

Smart Company has an interesting article (April 2018) about Chinese sellers misrepresenting themselves and the item location (specifically on eBay) and how that is affecting local sellers... and retail consultant John Batistich says ❝It’s fair to say that the customer is less concerned about where a product comes from, unless it’s a product of great local provenance. They are just looking for the best solution, price, delivery, payment options.❞

Kochies Business Builder site really turns all of this around by referring to Roy Morgan research that claims that ❝The majority of Australians would prefer to buy Australian-made goods than their overseas counterparts according to research by Roy Morgan❞ although the site does state that ❝The exception to this rule are clothes and electronics, with over a third of Australians (34 per cent) more likely to buy Chinese-made clothes, although this is less than half the 76 per cent that are more likely to buy Australian-made clothes.     Similarly, there are 29 per cent of Australians that are more likely to buy Chinese-made electrical goods just fewer than half of the 62% of Australians more likely to buy Australian-made electrical goods.❞

A bit of an older study... but worth considering... is on the Association for Consumer Research website (and was published in Asia Pacific Advances in Consumer Research Volume 1, 1994). It concluded that there are differences between how Australians and Americans make purchase decisions: ❝The tendency for Australians to use Affect Referral decision strategies more frequently than Americans can be explained by the differences between the two cultures regarding the importance shopping has in the cultures, as described in the literature review. One would expect the Americans to use more analytical strategies based on the information overload in the culture, symptomatic of the prevalent modernism. The desire to have the latest everything typifies American culture, unlike Australians, who revel in their populism. The laid back attitudes in Australian culture explain the preference for Affect Referral over other compensatory and non-compensatory strategies.❞

But has this changed as a result of internet buying? That study is 25 years old. We do know that American tourists have the reputation of expecting a high standard in accommodation...

If there are modern studies specifically addressing the buying habits and reputation of Australians, especially in comparison to buyers from other nations, I haven't come across it. That leaves me feeling simultaneously uncomfortable and yet ... stubborn. I am recognising confirmation bias in myself; I believe it is true that Australian buyers have the reputation among Chinese sellers at the very least, of caring about the lowest price rather than good quality. I can't point to published research or studies at present that provide evidence for this. I may well be wrong.

I'm left with two overheard conversations in a foreign language, buyer behaviour shown on these boards (where eBayers consistently say that they'll continue to buy from Chinese sellers because they're looking for the cheapest price, and where eBayers come here apparently expecting that a Chinese seller's warranty can be relied on), the fact that Chinese sellers are doing a rip-roaring trade, the fact that eBay.cn and the Chinese government facilitate international trade by several important means (lowering the cost, reduced fees, logistics companies streamlining the whole process, subsidised international parcel delivery, etc.), and my gut feeling. That is suggestive but scarcely meets the burden of proof if we were in a court of law (even a civil court).

[springyzone]

It is interesting as the study was commissioned by a company with a bargain website, so i would say the focus would have been on finding out what appeals to consumers and how they can tap into that.

The issue of trust comes into it, I think.  That's why so many consumers have an upper limit on online spending, or so i presume. I also presume that willingness to buy would be based on how trustworthy the customer thought the company might be. So for example, I might spend more with a big known retail company than with an unknown or small seller.

One thing this survey is showing is that when it comes to important purchases, those over $5000, something like 87% of Australians would probably be going elsewhere than online.

And of course, the survey was taken of Australians and we don't know exactly how they compare to buyers in eg USA or UK.

I suspect that 84% of customers overseas would also feel satisfaction if they went online to price an item and were able to find it at a discount. That seems to me a big reason they would be looking online in the first place.

Part of ithe reason for shopping online will be about the convenience, to see what is actually available, read about the products, without having to scoot from store to store, but the minute a person goes on from that to then look up the same item but from a different store, what they are doing is a price comparison. I imagine it is fairly common world wide.

I don't know that any study that tells us how likely Australians are to buy eg clothes or electronics made overseas is really telling us anything at all about Australian attitudes as such.

There is now, unfortunately, very little that seems to be made in Australia any more, so the range of choice is just not there.
I discovered this a few years back when I went to buy a fridge.

When it comes to the issue of quality, of course there will be differences in products and often to some extent, you get what you pay for. But I do think we are being let down by our government. They need to set the safety and quality standards, they need to enforce them.

If some of the opportunists from overseas could not get away with selling substandard items here, we would all be better off.

[mistareno]

Recently purchased a solar panel that I bought mainly based on size (wind break for roof rack)

It was advertised as 200w but the size size was only 121 x 55 (0.6m2), so I was thinking it might put out 140W Max.

The panel they sent was even smaller but still had a lovely sticker proclaiming it was 200w.  

It's 110w. Maybe 115w in absolutely ideal conditions.

I asked the seller why the panel was physically smaller than advertised. They then changed the advert and told me I was in the wrong - They obviously don't realise that eBay saves a copy of the advert as it was when you placed your order

They then tried to tell me I could only measure Volts, because the amps could only be measured with special lab equipment (despite having an open circuit Amp figure on the panel that can be measured with virtually any multimeter)

Luckily it was eBay plus, so I don't wear the return fee.

Beware. There are some real crooks out there...,

[countessalmirena]

You wouldn't be wearing the return postage cost in any event, since the item is significantly not as described.

eBay Plus didn't give you an advantage here, but I'm glad that you had no trouble returning it and receiving a full refund.

[zdos_quila]

It's the majority of the masses who are the root cause of this. So many people buy based on price alone, its really getting out of control as it fuels cheap quality as good quality can't compete. You also got big name brands overpriced and that fuels the problem

Anyway just brought a 250W portable panel and it's really between 140-180W (not sure as i dont know the exact cell efeciency). But the sticker specs on the panels are false too, not just the advertised specs.

[andiness]

I had the same thing happen. I purchased two panels that are well under their recommended rating. I came to the same conclusion as you. It is illegal to make false or misleading claims about the rating of solar panels and is a breach of consumer law. The buyer doesn't need to beware as suggested in one of the posts. You are entitled to a full refund once you return the product. Of course, it seems the sellers take advantage of this because of the difficulty of returning solar panels, especially large ones. Until there's a law that places the responsibility on the seller to organise and pay for them to be return for a full refund, it will probably continue to happen. I'll be contacting the ACCC to report the issue however I'm not convinced it will help, but it can't hurt to try.