By Violet Li
Cranbourne’s new discount retailer Panda Mart says it will liaise with suppliers on proper labelling of products that contain button batteries and hire a professional to check stocks, amid Consumer Affairs Victoria’s public warning.
Consumer Affairs Victoria issued a bombshell public warning on Wednesday 5 March to customers who purchased goods from the store to stop using them immediately and return them to the store for a refund.
According to its statement, inspectors visited the store this week and seized thousands of products they believed failed to meet mandatory product safety and information standards.
The items taken off the shelves included toys and baby rattles containing button batteries that were inadequately secured or labelled.
Owner John Chen said the inspectors took away about 50 kinds of products, which were mainly items with button batteries, including birthday cards and kitchen scales.
He said the products were qualified but loosely labelled.
“For example, the instructions and manuals say the products have button batteries, but it isn’t pointed out on the package. And according to the regulation, we need to label that on the package,” he said.
“We have to tell the supplier that they need to have this label on the package.
“We have studied this before, but because we have too many varieties of goods, you just missed some.
“The supplier did say there is a label, but the logo is actually on the manual. There is some miscommunication.”
Mr Chen said the inspectors also took away toy guns, children’s cosmetics and tissues for labelling issues.
“Toy guns do have labels, but the labels do not comply with their regulations. It should be labelled that you can’t use them to hit the eyes or the face, and we labelled that you can’t use them to hit the body and animals. So it should be more strict,” he noted.
“For children’s cosmetic toys, we didn’t label the ingredient list. We were told to list the ingredients and labelled that if you are allergic to this ingredient, don’t buy it.
“The tissues only have Chinese labels, but English versions are needed.”
Mr Chen said they had learned their lessons and would hire a professional in the industry to check their stock in future.
He said they were waiting for the formal investigation report from Consumer Affairs Victoria.
