COMMODITY EXPERTISE IN E-COMMERCE

The article addresses the pressing issue of ensuring high product quality in the context of the rapid development of e-commerce. It explores the features of commodity expertise as a crucial tool for quality control, analyzing the factors influencing such expertise in both traditional and online trade. The study identifies the key challenges associated with conducting commodity expertise in remote sales conditions, including indirect contact with the examined object, difficulties in product identification, limited capabilities of commodity research methods, and the increasing impact of subjective evaluations, marketing, and social tools on consumers' perceptions of product quality. The research employs the general scientific methods and approaches, including systematic analysis, observation, comparison, generalization, dialectical methods, as well as control and synthesis techniques. Through comparative analysis, the differences between traditional and e-commerce approaches to commodity expertise are identified, demonstrating the dependence of quality control in e-commerce on informal assessment tools such as ratings, consumer reviews, blogger recommendations, and expert reviews. The study highlights the shortcomings of these mechanisms due to their low objectivity, susceptibility to manipulation, and lack of professionalism. The article proposes ways to improve the methodology of commodity expertise in e-commerce by leveraging digital technologies that can compensate for the limitations of traditional quality control methods. Key recommendations emphasize the potential of blockchain to enhance transparency in product origin and movement, the Internet of Things (IoT) for real-time monitoring of product parameters, big data analytics and artificial intelligence for detecting fraudulent reviews, ratings, and sellers, as well as 3D scanning for remote evaluation of product characteristics. Based on the findings, the study concludes that there is a need to revise the methodological foundations of commodity expertise to better regulate quality control processes in online trade.