Daraz removes Odomos from website amid pricing backlash

Leading online marketplace Daraz has stopped the sales of Odomos in the face of severe criticism on social media over the high prices the mosquito repellent cream listed on its platform.

As dengue fever runs rife across Bangladesh, the prices of disease testing kits and mosquito repellent products have increased manifold.

Retailers were charging customers between Tk 300 and Tk 548 for the 50gm cream, which was being sold at Tk 125 until the onset of the ongoing bout of the mosquito-borne viral fever.

The Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection recently fined some retailers and superstores for selling Odomos at higher-than-usual prices.

Earlier this week, the ostensible overpricing of Odomos on Daraz triggered a backlash on Facebook.

However, two days ago, the e-commerce company decided to remove the product from its website, said Sayontoni Tisha, a spokeswoman for Daraz.

"We’ve decided to remove the product only when we knew that there was no authorised distributor in the country for it," she told bdnews24.com. 

The product was last seen on the platform at 10:52am on Thursday.

Odomos, manufactured by the Indian firm Dabur, was being sold at Rs 92 for 100gm on Amazon.in. And on Thursday morning, the original price of the same product was listed at Tk 600 on Daraz with the product being sold for Tk 400, purportedly at a discount of 33 percent.

"Daraz doesn’t fix the price of the product, but the seller (distributor) does," said Tisha on the price of Odomos on the platform.

But the product was not advertised on the website after Tisha’s comments.

Regarding the price of Odomos on Daraz, Afroza Rahman, assistant director of Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection Dhaka, said the authorities will look into the matter if they receive a complaint over it.

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