Over the past couple of months, a new strange marketing tactic has alarmed neighborhoods across the world: mysterious packets containing unidentified seeds are being mailed from countries like China and Singapore to recipients who never ordered them. As citizens worldwide remain in the dark with regards to the purpose of these deliveries, people in the know are beginning to see the signs of a well-documented e-commerce scam. The scam in question is called “brushing” – and while it can come across as rather bizarre, it can have worrisome implications on the economy and the environment.

Granted, brushing is yet another speck in the plethora of e-commerce buzzwords. In order to understand its effects in their full complexity, let’s take it from the top.

What is brushing?

Brushing is an e-commerce strategy that generates fake orders in an attempt to boost the ratings of individual items. What essentially happens is that the seller pays someone a small sum to place an order using someone else’s name and address. As a result, the item in question is shown to have been ordered a lot more frequently than it normally would, boosting its rating and its desirability to consumers.

This doesn’t make sense logistically, though: shipping those items in exchange for their original price isn’t a smart advertising investment, simply because it’s the exact same as selling them in the first place, only the recipients get them for free. To remedy that, sellers usually ship empty packages or cheaper items; in this case, handfuls of seeds.

By definition, petty scams like brushing seem fitting for smaller business owners. That, however, isn’t the case: companies like Amazon and Alibaba have been accused of delivering phantom goods (in 2019 and 2016 respectively), something that paints a rather grim picture of how widely e-commerce can influence our everyday life. Unfortunately, the effects of brushing extend beyond befuddlement and inconvenience. It raises concerns about the ethics of modern commerce, and lately, its consequences on the environment are being put on the table.

Brushing and biodiversity

July, 2020 has brought us its fair share of oddness and tragedy. A widespread brushing scam involving seeds wasn’t entirely out of the question – what with the delivery business booming in lockdown – but the potential threat it poses to environment was certainly ill-timed. Let’s take a gander.

While most recipients were surprised to discover the little seed packets in the mailbox, the loneliness and boredom of quarantine inspired some to plant them. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, however, that could have been a grave mistake. Some of the seeds remain unidentified, meaning they could very well be invasive species that could damage natural and agricultural areas. By extension, these plant species could affect the food resources of many countries – and while more affluent nations might be able to deal with that issue in spite of the dreaded expenditures of COVID-19 response, other parts of the world might be less fortunate.

The financial aspect of the matter aside, there is also the issue of biodiversity itself becoming jeopardized. Invasive species antagonize local plant life and shift the balance of ecosystems. In our present ecological circumstances – which include, among other things, a burgeoning biodiversity crisis – this is something that our communities cannot afford. As the number and individual populations of flora dwindle, brushing seeds seems to entail much more severe circumstances than an ordinary marketing scam. This, in introspection, raises the question of whether retail giants should be burdened with environmental fines for pulling stunts like these.

The issue with deliveries

Another problem that brushing introduces is owed to the sheer number of deliveries being carried out for the purpose of the scam. The shipping and delivery industry is responsible for a sizable chunk of CO2 emissions, and while maritime shipping is far more environmentally sound than airplanes and trucks – which produce 435 and 80 grams of CO2 per tone-km respectively – it still causes considerable disarray in marine ecosystems, sometimes even colliding with and killing important marine life.

Fortunately, the shipping industry has begun to catch up with sustainability standards. The World Shipping Council reports that ships built mid-2010s are approximately 30-40% more carbon efficient than the fleets they replaced, and the International Maritime Organization has introduced a variety of legally binding energy efficiency criteria over the past decade. However, that doesn’t in any way cast a kinder light over the environmental impact of brushing and other commerce schemes. As consumers – and as active, responsible citizens of the world – it is our right and responsibility to demand that retail giants do better; to elect representatives who will keep corporate interests out of the way of sustainable progress; and lastly, to gain a new understanding of how marketing, a seemingly innocuous practice, can potentially affect every aspect of our communities.

CITATIONS

1.     1.  Better Business Bureau, "Brushing” scam indicates a serious problem for victims, August 3, 2020, available at bbb.org

2.    2.   The Canadian Press, Why mysterious seed packages showing up in Canadian mailboxes could be a 'brushing' scam, August 5, 2020, available at cbc.ca

3.     3.  Passy, Jacob, "Beware of unsolicited packages after Amazon Prime Day – they could be part of a scam", July 19, 2016, available at marketwatch.com

4.    4.   Nathan Bomey, Elizabeth Weise, SEC probes Alibaba’s Singles Day; stock drops, May 25, 2016, available at eu.usatoday.com

5. 5.      World Shipping Council, “Carbon Emissions”, available at worldshipping.com