Analyzing the Distribution of Tobacco Products through Online Marketplaces

Background: Online marketplaces continue to pose substantial challenges for tobacco control, especially related to the sales of e-cigarettes.These products are often sold without clear nicotine labeling, making it unclear whether they should be classified as tobacco products.This study aimed to examine the current state of online tobacco distribution using web crawling techniques and to explore regulatory implications.Methods: Tobacco product listings were collected from 2 major platforms, 11 Street and Naver Shopping, using APIs and web crawlers.After filtering and manual labeling, 13,167 valid listings were retained for analysis.Three researchers classified the data using keyword filtering and manual review, identifying the product types and subcategories.A subset of 2,334 e-cigarette listings for flavor, nicotine type, and concentration was further analyzed.Results: In total, 2,729 tobacco-related products on 11 Street and 10,438 on Naver Shopping were identified.E-cigarettes accounted for about 90% of the listings, followed by heated tobacco (2.5%), roll-your-own tobacco (2.2%), hookahs (1.0%), and other products (0.3%).Although most listings required age verification, certain tobacco-use devices and snuff products could still be accessed without restrictions.No illegal cigarettes were found on 11 Street.However, Naver Shopping included 99 potentially illegal items, of which 89 were raw tobacco leaves and 10 were ready-made roll-your-own cigarettes.Among e-cigarettes, 50.7% of listings on 11 Street were labeled nicotine-free, whereas 49.3% lacked nicotine information.On Naver Shopping, 86.6% were identified as nicotine-free, and 12.0% lacked any labeling. Conclusion:The findings highlight the urgent need for the stricter regulation of online tobacco sales.This includes implementing mandatory nicotine labeling, stricter age verification measures, and greater accountability for online platforms.Web crawling offers a scalable tool for continuous and automated monitoring.