Dive Brief:
- The Federal Trade Commission, which enforces U.S. laws against deceptive ads, dropped its probe of Wal-Mart after the chain addressed the issue of products advertised as "Made in USA" when they weren’t, Reuters reported.
- The FTC ceased the probe without action after Wal-Mart dropped all "Made in USA" logos from products on its website, the FTC said in a letter to the company that was posted on the agency's website.
- Wal-Mart has since redesigned its "Made in USA" logos for some products to better indicate how much of the product was made domestically and how much was made overseas, the FTC said in the letter.
Dive Insight:
The logos under investigation came into question after consumer watchdog group Truth in Advertising found 100 instances of mislabeled Wal-Mart products in June, and brought them to the retailer’s attention. They then found another 100 in July, and alerted the FTC, according to Reuters.
Wal-Mart has long been vilified for sourcing much of its massive product assortment overseas, and is widely blamed for contributing to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
To that end, the company has been on a mission to rehabilitate its image with its high-profile Made In America initiative. In 2013, Walmart promised to buy an extra $250 billion in U.S.-made goods by 2023 to support U.S. manufacturing jobs, launching the news with the National Retail Federation at a vendor summit that year.
