In recent days, Chinese sanitary napkin brand ABC has become the focus of public opinion due to issues of “actual length differing from the specified length” and “cutting corners,” as well as the attitude of customer service. Today (22nd), the founder of the brand publicly apologized.
On November 22nd, ABC brand founder Deng Jingheng apologized through an official video posted on Weibo: “During this period, ABC has received criticism from many consumers due to the deviation from national standards and inappropriate remarks from distributors’ customer service. Here, I won’t make any excuses and sincerely apologize to everyone again. I’m sorry!”
Deng Jingheng promised that some products would achieve zero deviation from national standards in December, and all products would achieve zero deviation from national standards by March 2025.
The incident was triggered by several netizens revealing that several sanitary napkin brands on the market have the phenomenon of “actual length differing from the specified length” and “cutting corners,” with the actual length being smaller than the length stated on the packaging; the difference in length is even greater when only the inner absorption layer capable of absorbing liquid substances is considered. Among them, the cotton length of an ABC sanitary napkin is 250mm, not 280mm as indicated.
Regarding this matter, the customer service of ABC’s flagship store for laundry and care stated, “There may be deviations in machine-produced sanitary napkins, a slight deviation is considered normal, not cutting corners, 1-2 cm falls within the normal margin of error. The dimensions of rulers may also have errors. If you find it unacceptable, you can choose not to purchase.” This statement was criticized by consumers for its bad attitude, leading to controversy.
After ABC’s sanitary napkin customer service made an emergency apology on November 13, netizens found on November 17 that the company’s Tmall flagship store had removed all products.
According to “21st Century Economic Report,” substandard product quality and poor customer service attitude collectively made ABC the focal point of public opinion. ABC is not the only one issuing apologies. In this industry-wide scandal of “covertly cutting corners,” no one can escape scrutiny.
According to incomplete statistics, brands like Hushubao, Sofy, Nice Princess, Seventh Space, Laoeya, Weil, Gaojis, She Yan She, Shulai, Freedom Point, and Out-of-the-way Cotton have also been found to have “sanitary napkin length differing from the specified length” similar to ABC.