Distributor to Supplier: Is this Product OK for Children?

October 24, 2011 ~ Rick Brenner ~ Leave a comment

I received a call last week from a distributor concerned about an order she had recently shipped through an industry supplier for a children’s event. The distributor told me she had inquired of the supplier’s customer service rep if the product was OK for children but was now wondering what else she should have done. Here is a capsule of what I recommended.

Start by asking for the product’s General Certification of Conformity (GCC) as well as its most recent test reports. A GCC is required by federal law for every consumer product subject to any rule or regulation enforced by CPSC. Regardless of what the test report says, the GCC is the best way to find out if the supplier considers the product as a “children’s product.” If the supplier does not, even if the test report passes CPSIA standards, it is a red flag that the supplier might not be monitoring each production run to children’s product standards.

Recommendation 1 (Children’s Product): If you sell a product that you know is intended for children, be sure that the supplier acknowledges through the GCC that it is a children’s product. Then, if something goes wrong later, you won’t risk being in the position of the supplier saying “we didn’t know it was for children and we never said it was a children’s product.”

So how do you find out from the GCC if the supplier considers the product a “children’s product?” You do so by examining the section of the GCC listing the applicable regulations. CPSIA requires the importer or domestic manufacturer to list every CPSC-enforced rule that applies to the product. If the supplier doesn’t have a GCC for the product, or if the section noting the applicable rules is blank, it means that the supplier is not acknowledging that the product is a children’s product or a children’s toy.

If the item is certified for use as a children’s product you will see at least two rules listed. The first is CPSIA lead-in-substrate, sometimes called total lead. The second is lead-in-surface coating, sometimes called 16 CFR 1303. Lead in substrate refers to lead in the material that the product is made of. Lead in surface coating refers to lead in any painted surfaces or in the imprint.

If the item is certified as a children’s toy you will see at least two more rules in addition to the two lead provisions. One is the mandatory toy safety standard called ASTM F963. That used to be a voluntary standard but Congress made it mandatory when they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). The second toy related rule applies to chemicals referred to as “phthalates.” CPSIA prohibits the sale of children’s toys with concentrations of more than .1% of any of the phthalates DEHP, DBP, BBP, DINP, DIDP and DnOP.

Recommendation 2 (Children’s Toy): Same concept as recommendation 1. If you sell a product that you know is likely to be used a children’s toy, be sure the supplier acknowledges through the GCC that it is a children’s toy.

The GCC requires other information you should note as well. First, make sure that the product identified on the GCC is exactly the same as they one you’re buying. Second, look for the name of the U.S. importer or domestic manufacturer certifying compliance of the product. Is it the name of the supplier you’re ordering from? If not – perhaps because the supplier bought the product from a local wholesaler – is it a company you know and are comfortable with? The name on the GCC is the party certifying compliance – the party legally responsible if something goes wrong – and ultimately the party you’re entrusting with your client’s logo. And if this isn’t challenging enough, if the supplier buys a blank from an importer and then decorates the product, you need two GCCs – one for the product and one for the decoration.

Recommendation 3 (Responsible party): Look at the GCC for the party certifying compliance. If it is not the supplier you’re buying the product from then learn who the importer is and whether it is someone you feel is reliable. Also, in that circumstance, find out if the decoration is to be applied by the importer or someone else – your supplier or a sub contractor. If the answer is “someone else” you’ll need a separate GCC for the decoration.

The next important point relates to testing. The GCC requires the date and place where the product was tested for each regulation cited on the GCC and it requires the identification of any third-party laboratory on whose testing the certification depends. Look at the test reports you received and be sure they correspond to exactly what you see on the GCC. The lab name, test date and tests listed should match one for one with the same information noted on the GCC.

Recommendation 4 (Testing): I have written previously on the topic of how to read test reports to be sure your product complies as well as on the limitations of these reports. Review these articles at http://rickbrenner.com and keep them handy for reference. In a nutshell, be sure you have a current test report from a CPSC-certified third party laboratory, that the report is for the identical product, SKU number and color that you ordered, that it includes legible photographs of the product, and that it certifies compliance with every regulation identified on the GCC. You should also be sure that the test report is based on the most current version of the law. A passing grade from June 2011 doesn’t necessarily mean that the product passes the new lead threshold that took effect in August 2011.

There are a few other things to note as well:

A separate GCC is required for every production run – indicating the manufacture date. Be sure that that the GCC you receive is specific to the product you’ve received.

Ask your supplier to confirm that the product you are receiving is being manufactured in the same factory where the tested product was manufactured, that there have been no changes in the design or bill of materials since the test and that the tested product was produced from the same raw materials as your production pieces. If not, you should insist that your production pieces be tested.

It is best to communicate directly with your supplier’s compliance department or the supplier’s person responsible for compliance. Product safety laws are complicated and evolving. The people most likely to know the most are those who deal with compliance every day. My recommendation is to deal with suppliers who are knowledgeable about these product safety and compliance matters and who provide you with direct phone and email access to get your questions answered.

This article applies specifically to the children’s product provisions in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). There are other federal product safety regulations and there are several state regulations. PPAI has developed an excellent tool called Turbo Test to help distributors and suppliers determine the regulations that may apply to a wide range of products in the industry and PPAI also has a relationship with a third party laboratory that is available to advise members. Also, there are many attorneys whose practices include a specialty in product safety legislation.

Prime Sample GCC

CPSC Sample Format – GCC (Note: This link also includes an FAQ from the Commission about GCCs)

Differentiating Quality Still a Challenge for the Promotional Products Industry

October 15, 2011 ~ Rick Brenner ~ Leave a comment

Of all the costs that go into making a promotional product, quality costs are often the hardest to appreciate. If we do our job well, the product simply looks good and works. But if we don’t, if a product breaks, parts don’t fit together well, ink dries out, seams tear, imprints are crooked – the defect stands out like a black eye and does double damage. The flawed product disappoints and it reflects poorly on the company who gave it away – exactly the opposite of what promotional products are supposed to do. And now, with ever increasing product safety regulations upsetting norms, threatening the industry, raising calls for indemnification and changing the way we source products, quality has been catapulted front and center as a critical and urgent topic for promotional products professionals. Yet amidst all of the attention, it remains a significant challenge for our industry to differentiate the highest quality products from the similar looking but lessor products, particularly when they often appear even to experienced buyers to be the same.

For personal purchases, brand names and expectation levels often inform the quality aspect of our buying decisions. We don’t have the same expectations for an item we buy from a dollar store as one we buy from Ralph Lauren. In the grocery store we expect more from Del Monte and Heinz than we do from generic store brands. And we are willing to pay more for the additional quality we get from branded items.

But most promotional products are not branded. Similar looking products are available from dozens of sources with nearly identical descriptions. Search engines like ESP or SAGE can also make similar products appear to be the same.

But they aren’t necessarily the same.

A month ago I received a call from a trusted industry source who said he knew of a well-respected bag factory that had some unexpected downtime and might be able to improve our price on a very popular item from our line. From the description and photos on our website his factory quoted a very attractive price. But after we sent actual samples of our bag the price went up considerably. The fabric was a higher grade than the factory had assumed and our reinforced construction required more labor. Our bag was of a higher quality but the differences were not obvious from the picture and web description, even to a 30-year industry veteran.

As hard as tangible differences are to detect, the critical quality initiatives behind the scenes are even more invisible. Many industry players are now following guidelines like the PPAI Code of Conduct and strict standards from certification organizations like QCA and FLA. These quality commitments include factory audits to verify compliance with child labor laws, social accountability, environmental stewardship, product reliability testing, QC inspections, supply chain security and third-party tests for product safety regulations. The costs of these quality efforts are substantial – one Top 40 apparel supplier told me recently that he spends $500,000 per year on compliance – but none of these efforts are apparent from ESP, SAGE or Google searches. Yet every dollar spent on quality – higher grade materials, better construction, QC inspections and product testing – contributes to the reliability, integrity and compliance of the product – and ultimately, a more compelling statement for the end buyer.

For distributors with years of experience the challenge of selling quality against cheaper lookalikes is nothing new. They know their suppliers well and which ones have performed reliably year in and year out. These professionals understand that quality oriented suppliers are not likely to take on a product unless it has been tested and meets their standards. But not everyone in the industry has this experience and many rely on ESP and SAGE for sources, searches that focus on price comparisons, not quality comparisons.

Aside from the challenge of educating our own industry is the challenge of educating end buyers, many of whom are young marketing professionals who find lookalikes through Google with little attention given to compliance or quality. It’s not that these buyers are irresponsible; they just don’t understand the supply chain risks. Yet if one of these lookalike products results in embarrassment, an injury, a recall or becomes fodder for a Prop 65 bounty hunter, our industry would take the hit and pay the price.

So what are some meaningful steps we can take to help promote responsible sourcing?

Education is the most important. If everyone involved in the sale and purchase of promotional products understands the issues involved in quality and compliance, they will know the right questions to ask to help them make an informed decision of what product is best for their needs. PPAI does an outstanding job providing this education through webinars, MAS/CAS certification, its Product Responsibility Action Group and through classroom sessions at Expo. Many distributor and supplier organizations provide excellent training as well.

Second, the industry needs to do a better job of making it easy for distributors to differentiate the quality and compliance characteristics of similar products – on supplier websites, on ESP and on SAGE. Better product descriptions would help as would some kind of grading system to indicate whether a product was sourced with budget, standard or premium quality. Perhaps a series of standard icons could be developed to indicate product or supplier certifications, whether the product has been tested as a children’s product or toy, and whether it is compliant with other state or federal requirements. It would be even better if these icons were active links to the actual test reports documenting the compliance claim.

John Ruskin once wrote “There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper.” That has always been the case in the promotional industry. But now, with product safety and compliance presenting such significant risks to our livelihood, it is more urgent than ever that we develop easier and more effective ways for the industry to differentiate the quality and compliance characteristics of similar looking products.

If You Sell Promotional Products, Learn to Read a Test Report

September 30, 2011 ~ Rick Brenner ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know. Boring technical jargon. It’s all true.

But unless you have someone else in your company to take care of this for you, you can’t afford not to know how to read a test report.

There’s an easy way and a hard way. I’ll show you the easy way. The hard way is to find out that the product you thought was compliant isn’t compliant and that the official looking test report you’ve got in your file is out of date, not relevant to your specific product or doesn’t include all the tests you need.

I know. I learned the hard way.

Back in 2007, when the testing mania began and before we started ordering our own tests, we asked all of our factories to send us test reports for the products in our line. This was a year before CPSIA, before phthalate limits, before lead-in-substrate limits, and before mandatory ASTM F963. The only federal lead restriction was the 600 ppm limit for lead in paint or surface coating – the one that tripped up Mattel with their Barbie Doll recalls.

We received plenty of official looking reports and most of them from well-known testing labs. They referred to tests and codes like EN71, RoHS and 16 CFR 1303. Some included photographs, some did not. We dutifully filed them away and provided them on request to any distributor who asked – the ones doing business with corporations who have really knowledgable compliance people. And that’s when the education began – when those people saw the holes in some of the reports we provided.

“This report is dated 2005. Do you have a current one?” “The product in this report is a tumbler but it doesn’t look anything like one than we’re buying.” “EN71 is for Europe. Do you have a test report for the US standard ASTM F963?”

You get the idea. Almost none of the reports were for the actual products in our line. Most were outdated and covered mostly European standards.

Bullet point one: If the test isn’t for the exact product you’re purchasing, it doesn’t mean anything. Never mind that the factory says it’s made of the same material. If you’re purchasing Prime’s LT-3290 then the test report needs to say LT-3290. And it should have a picture so you know for sure that the test is for the same product you’re ordering.

Bullet point two: The test should be current. The date is critical because the standards have changed. It doesn’t help you to have a lead test dated April 2011 if the bag you’re buying was manufactured in September. The lead standard in April was 300 ppm. After August 14 it changed to 100 ppm.

Speaking of ppm, that’s just a way of expressing a very dilute concentration of a substance. It means one out of a million the way percent means one of a hundred. So lead of 90 ppm means 90 parts out of a million. Bullet point three: Since the number is critical, make sure the test report shows the actual number – not just PASS or FAIL. Without that number you can’t tell if the product complies with the current standards in the law. In CPSIA particularly the lead standards have been continually phased down since August 2008.

Bullet point four: Don’t assume that the test covers everything. Last year we received a passing test report for a small battery powered stuffed toy. The test passed but the battery compartment wasn’t included in the sample tested. After 5,000 pieces were produced we learned that the battery compartment didn’t comply and required several thousand dollars of rework. Expensive mistake.

Labs only perform the tests that they’re asked to perform, just as in the stuffed toy example. So if you see a report with a passing lead test, look closely to see what it is covering. CPSIA requires two different lead tests. The first is for lead in the material itself – sometimes called total lead or lead-in-substrate. (The actual wording in CPSIA is “total lead content by weight for any part of the product”). That limit is currently 100 ppm for children’s products. The second requirement is for lead in any paint or surface coating. That could either be a painted surface of the product itself or the imprint/applique that the supplier or decorator applies. Normally ink used for printed material like books and catalogs is considered part of the material. But heat transfers, pad printing and silk screening inks – particularly if they can be scraped off – are usually considered surface coating. The lead limit for paint and surface coating is 90 ppm. So you need a test for the lead in the material and a separate test for lead in any surface coating. The lead in material test is usually labeled on a test report as something like “CPSIA Lead in substrate.” The lead in surface coating test is usually labeled 16 CFR 1303 for the section number of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) containing the regulation.

Bullet point five: European standards are for Europe. US standards are for the US. They aren’t the same. If you see a passing test report for EN71 – the European toy safety standard – don’t assume that the product will pass ASTM F963 – the US toy safety standard. They’re different.

Bullet point six: If your product happens to be a toy, it needs to comply with the the Federal Toy Safety Standard usually referred to as ASTM F963. This used to be a voluntary standard but in CPSIA – the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act – Congress made it mandatory. ASTM F963 isn’t one test – it’s 67 pages of various tests for which toys need to comply. If you drop the toy from three feet will it shatter? Is it a choke hazard? Does it have sharp edges? Lots of things like that. So if your product is a toy, be sure that the report states that it is fully compliant with all applicable tests from the current ASTM F963 standard. Most labs will do that automatically but remember our battery compartment experience.

Bullet point seven: Toys (and child care items) need to be tested for six phthalates: DEHP, DBP, and BBP, DINP, DIDP, and DnOP. These are plasticizers – chemicals added to make plastic more flexible like the strand that attaches the ear buds to your iPod. The maximum limit for each of these phthalates is .1 percent. Make sure the test report lists all six and indicates that there is no more than .1 percent of each one.

These are the basics for the tests required by CPSIA. There are certainly plenty of other possible tests if your product is subject to another Federal Act, ban or regulation. And there are state regulations too. But let’s save those for a future article.

Remember these seven bullets and you’re 90% of the way there.