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Australians are putting themselves and their children at higher risk of choking, fire hazards, burns and death by buying cheaply made electronics, baby toys and clothes online, the national product safety chief has warned.
Standards Australia chief Rob Balding has issued an urgent warning, citing research the organisation commissioned, that found four in five consumers know overseas discount retailers sell products that don’t meet local safety standards – but 68 per cent would buy them anyway.
“They may appear to be an absolute bargain,” said Balding. “But we’re just encouraging people to do a little bit more due diligence and research before they hit that ‘buy now’ button.”
The surge of cheap products purchased online has prompted urgent warnings about safety risks.Credit: Adobe Stock
A rising proportion of our wallets – $69 billion, or about 20¢ of every Australian dollar – is spent online, according to Australia Post, and this figure is forecast to hit 25 per cent in the long term.
Despite interventions from state regulators such as Consumer Victoria pulling hundreds of non-compliant products from the shelves of discount retailers Miniso and Pandamart, thousands of low-cost, poorly made products ordered online are entering the country every day without interference.
“We do not want to be telling people how to spend their hard-earned money, and we’re very conscious of cost of living and financial pressures people are under,” said Balding, who has sounded the alarm ahead of the busy Black Friday and Christmas period.
“We have grown up coming to expect a certain level of high quality with anything that we’ve been able to purchase. As more of these ecommerce platforms and more of an import market start[s] to take shape online, that level of expectation that we’ve had is not always being met.”
Standards Australia chief executive officer Rob Balding.
The products of greatest concern are consumer electronics such as phone chargers, power banks, USB-powered devices, hair straighteners and portable heaters. Australia runs on a 230 voltage system, so devices made for different markets – such as 110 volts, which is standard for North America – are not designed to cope with the heat and can overheat, melt or short-circuit.
Meanwhile, children’s toys, particularly those with button batteries, may have detachable parts that can be accidentally swallowed, while loose cords or strings carry risk of strangulation. In Australia, three children have died from swallowing button batteries.
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“If you don’t have appropriate level of standards around things like teethers and rattles, things can come apart, and they can become hazards,” said Balding. Play-Doh equivalents such as slime can contain toxic materials and harmful chemicals.
Poor quality clothing, which makes up around 75 per cent of ultra-fast fashion platform Shein’s sales and around 40 per cent of Temu’s, can also be highly flammable and in some instances catch fire. Temu recalled a glow-in-the-dark jumper after an eight-year-old suffered severe burns from standing near a fire pit.
Coles and The Reject Shop were forced to recall Halloween products after the ACCC found novelty light-up products with button or coin batteries were not compliant with safety standards and that a two-wick candle was a fire hazard. Western Australia’s Consumer Protection agency found only three of 49 button battery-powered products met safety standards.
In February, Fire and Rescue NSW warned about a spike in lithium ion-battery induced fires, with the cause probably attributed to the wrong type of charger. Last year, an investigation by Choice found 15 randomly chosen Temu toys all failed safety testing.
Look out for the Regulatory Compliance Mark, which shows compliance with Australian safety standards.
When asked which platforms Australian consumers should be wary of, Balding said that non-compliant products could be found on Shein, Temu, Amazon, Ebay and Facebook Marketplace.
“It’s any e-commerce platform. There is a potential risk of a manufacturer or a reseller doing something that may not be in accordance with standards that we have come to expect from a safety perspective,” said Balding.
Australian consumers have been urged to look out for the Regulatory Compliance Mark, which shows a tick inside a circle inside a triangle, which conveys the product is electrically and legally safe to use and technically compliant.
“The other thing is looking for explicit words that say made or tested in accordance with Australian standards, so anything that starts with AS or AS/NZ.”
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