Prof. Ujang Sumarwan: Consumers Should be well-informed Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Good understanding of consumer behavior has a positive impact for producers if it complies with the business ethics. That understanding can also have a negative impact for consumers if manufacturers are tempted to use it to manipulate consumers. This was conveyed by Prof. Dr Ujang Sumarwan, of the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, Faculty of Human Ecology, Bogor Agricultural University (FEMA-IPB) in the Dialogue Expert Broadcast ar RRI in Bogor, recently. This dialogue this time is to commemorate the 2015 National Consumer Day of April 20.
Prof. Ujang said, consumers have a weakness that can be exploited by producers to manipulate it. Therefore, consumers must be active and more rational to get rid of it. Producers and consumers have different interests. As providers of needs, manufacturers have a social responsibility to consumers of maintaining confidence in their products and services and preventing conflict.
Some cases which are often disadvatageous to consumers include price manipulation, misleading promotion of price reduction (discount), cost of packaging, manipulated scales, odd value of pricing, and no expiration date. Lack of information causes consumers to be unable to judge what is consumed and unable to dedice what to do with the products that are not safe for them.
To protect the rights of consumers, explained Prof. Ujang, guidance and protection are required from all parties involved in the process of food supply, especially from the government and the legislature. All of this must be implemeted because of the enactment of the positive law in Indonesia through the Regulation No. 8/1999 on Consumer Protection.
An alternative that can be done to make efforts in the protection of consumers from the harm to health and safe consumption of products is the availability of adequate information for consumers. This is necessary in order to enable consumers to make the right choices. Other alternatives are consumer education, availability of compensation for consumers, and freedom to form consumer organizations.
"The availability of information will greatly assist the consumer with the decision making while reducing costs and risks to bear. In addition,a more concrete regulation on consumer protection from the government and legislature of harmful and poor food products should provide legal certainty and legal basis so that in case of violation by the manufacturers, the consumer can sue violators of the law," said Prof. Ujang. (Mtd)
