Category: Compliance Strategy

Voluntary Product Safety Standards: An Essential Guide

Posted on by John Vinod Khiatani — Leave a comment

Are you thinking about having your product meet voluntary product safety standards? Some might consider it to be costly and time-consuming. However, there are compelling reasons to do so, not to mention that it may help you avoid civil liability in some jurisdictions.

In this article, we present common questions associated with voluntary product safety standards and present the business case for adopting such voluntary standards.
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ETL Certification and Marking: A Complete Guide

Posted on by Yvette Shen — Leave a comment

ETL Certification & Marking

Intertek has a long history of providing testing and certification services to clients wanting to ensure their products conform to relevant safety standards and regulations. This includes the ETL Certification Program. ETL stands for Electrical Testing Laboratories, which is Interteks lab testing branch.

When products have been tested and found to be compliant with the program’s requirements, manufacturers and importers can affix the ETL Mark on their products.

There are several types of ETL marks that can be used by companies whose products have been found compliant, including the ETL Listed Mark and the ETL Verified Mark.

This guide includes a list of ETL-covered products, information about ETL Certification, ETL Mark, and ETL Listing. Additionally, we explain the necessary steps that must be taken to ensure compliance, and how much it costs to have your products certified via Intertek’s ETL Certification Program.

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ASTM F963-17 Children’s Product Safety Standard: An Overview

Posted on by Yvette Shen — Leave a comment

ASTM F963-17 is a safety standard for toys, covering chemicals and heavy metals, mechanical and physical properties, electrical safety, small parts, and flammability. Ensuring compliance with ASTM F963-17 is mandatory under CPSIA, for a wide range of toys and other children’s products.

Notice that this guide is written only based on publicly available information on this page. You need to buy the standard in order to access the contents of ASTM F963.

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How to Verify Lab Test Reports & Product Certificates: A Practical Guide

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — Leave a comment

Verify Test Reports and Product Certificates

Accepting lab test reports from suppliers at face value can be extremely costly. We have dealt with many cases in which importers have assumed the validity of lab test reports that later on turned out to be completely useless.

When using existing test reports, you need to be absolutely certain that it’s not only an authentic document – but also valid for your supplier and product. Often that is not the case.

In this guide, I’ll explain how to “read” and verify lab test reports. Continue reading How to Verify Lab Test Reports & Product Certificates: A Practical Guide

CE Certificate of Conformity: A Complete Guide

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — 6 Comments

A CE Certificate of Conformity (CoC) essentially states that a certain product is compliant with one or more regulations, directives or standards. It also includes information about the conformity assessment performed, the issuing company, product information, and supplier.

In theory, this certificate is issued based on the issuing company reviewing or creating certain documents. This includes test reports and technical files.

However, as I will explain in this guide, far from all documents titled ‘Certificate of Conformity’ are valid and based on an actual conformity assessment. In short, many of these documents are invalid and can result in your products being subject to a recall, fines, or other penalties. Continue reading CE Certificate of Conformity: A Complete Guide

Walmart Marketplace Product Compliance Requirements: An Overview

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — Leave a comment

Walmart Marketplace Product Compliance Requirements

The Walmart Marketplace can be an attractive alternative to Amazon for e-commerce businesses looking to diversify their sales channels. In this guide, we explain what third-party sellers must know about product safety, labeling, and certification requirements when selling on Walmart Marketplace.

This guide is largely based on seller requirements on their page titled Supplier Expectations Compliance Areas. We help you understand these requirements from a more practical perspective. Keep in mind that their requirements may have been updated since the date of publication. Further, these guidelines are not specifically targeting Walmart Marketplace sellers, but to Walmart’s suppliers in general.
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eBay Product Compliance & Safety Requirements for Sellers: An Overview

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — Leave a comment

eBay Product ComplianceRequirements for Sellers

Selling products on eBay in the US, EU, UK, and Australia requires that your products are safe and compliant. In practice, this means that you need to arrange lab testing, create label files and certain documentation – before you list your items on eBay.

In this guide, we take a closer look at the eBay Product Safety Policy, and what it means for sellers. We also cover recalls, actions against non-compliant products, and seller pre-approvals. Continue reading eBay Product Compliance & Safety Requirements for Sellers: An Overview

Etsy Product Compliance & Safety Requirements for Sellers: An Overview

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — Leave a comment

Etsy Product Compliance

In 2021 we started receiving reports from Etsy sellers having their products removed from the marketplace. We have recently studied Etsy’s seller and product compliance policies, and their reasoning for removing certain items.

In this article, we share our findings to help Etsy sellers better understand their product safety obligations – and why it can be challenging to make the numbers work when it comes to lab testing and certifying handicrafts, and limited production runs. Continue reading Etsy Product Compliance & Safety Requirements for Sellers: An Overview

Test Reports and Product Certificates on Alibaba: A Complete Guide

Posted on by Fredrik Gronkvist — Leave a comment

Alibaba suppliers often upload lab test reports and product certificates on their company pages. Some buyers assume that this indicates that the supplier in question is by default “compliant” or “certified” in the sense that they exclusively make products in compliance with safety standards and regulations in the US, EU, and other countries.

However, this is far from the truth – and misunderstanding what test documents mean spells disaster for importers that are less experienced with product compliance. Continue reading Test Reports and Product Certificates on Alibaba: A Complete Guide

ISO 17025 Accreditation for Product Testing Labs: A Complete Guide

Posted on by Vincent Cheng — 1 Comment

ISO 17025

ISO 17025 is a globally recognized standard aiming at determining the capability of testing and calibration laboratories. It serves the purpose of demonstrating the competency of lab activities, such as providing accurate and timely results.

Using an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory can also help importers and manufacturers to ensure that their products’ testing results are reliable. Also, some marketplaces such as Amazon only accept ISO 17025 accredited labs, for certain product listings.

In this guide, we introduce the scope of ISO 17025, the accreditation process, and list some ISO 17025 accredited laboratories.
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