The British Toy & Hobby Association has published the results of the latest edition of its online marketplace investigation revealing that 85% of the toys purchased from third-party sellers through major online marketplaces could be a danger to children.
The BTHA is calling on the government to take urgent and strong action to protect children from the sale of dangerous toys into the UK.
The BTHA has been testing toys purchased through online marketplaces since 2018. The latest findings are based on the independent testing of a randomly selected sample of toys bought from third-party sellers across 11 well-known online marketplaces including Amazon, eBay, Shein and Temu.
The 2024 results show that 85% of the toys purchased are unsafe, meaning that they pose a risk to the health and safety of children, and a further 8% were illegal. This figure has remained remarkably consistent over the last six years since the BTHA first began testing. The sheer level of continued non-compliance is extremely concerning as the test sample points to a much wider endemic of dangerous toys being sold through online marketplaces compared to other retail channels.
“Despite years of evidence and time for online marketplaces to make improvements, sadly our latest findings show that dangerous toys are still being sold in huge numbers through the channel of online marketplaces,” commented Kerri Atherton, head of public affairs at the BTHA. “Consumers rightly expect that toys made available through these well-known marketplaces are safe for their children to play with, yet we consistently find the majority of third-party seller toys pose a risk to children’s safety.”
Online marketplaces play a significant role in the overall retail landscape, but regulations and enforcement have failed to keep up with the ensuing changes in supply chains. Unlike traditional retail models, online marketplaces are not legally responsible for the safety of products sold by their third-party sellers. With the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill going through Parliament, BTHA is calling on the government to close the harmful legal loopholes that are failing to keep children safe with several recommendations detailed in the report.
Kerri continued: “While the government’s new Product Regulation and Metrology Bill sets out good intentions to bring online marketplaces clearly into the legal framework, we need to see strong legal duties put on online marketplaces to give children maximum protection and ensure we can put a stop to these practices once and for all.”
This is not an issue that only impacts toys. There has been strong evidence of failures across a variety of online marketplaces and covering a wide range of consumer products discovered by organisations such as Which?, as well as the regulator, the Office for Product Safety and Standards. The systematic failures of online marketplaces are clear and the attempts by online marketplaces to put voluntary measures in place have not worked.
As consumers start looking ahead to Christmas, the BTHA has advice to help people shop for safe toys when buying online.
