The ACCC has published its Product Safety Research – Small Business Report, based on a survey of 400 Australian businesses involved in retail, manufacturing, wholesaling, distribution or importing consumer products.
There is some genuinely encouraging news:
âś… 85% ask suppliers for product-safety evidence
âś… 67% say they always verify supplier safety claims
âś… 97% retain some form of compliance documentation
Unfortunately, the results become less comforting when we look beneath the impressive-looking paperwork.
The most commonly requested evidence includes compliance certificates, product images and pictures of compliance labels. Only 65% request test reports, while just 56% retain them.
A certificate, photograph or label is not proof that the product was correctly tested, that every applicable requirement was assessed or that the report actually belongs to the product being supplied.
Some other findings should set off alarms:
- Only 62% recognised the responsibility to ensure products are safe and of acceptable quality.
- Only 57% knew they must not sell banned or compulsorily recalled products.
- Only 49% knew a recall notice must be submitted to the ACCC within two days of taking recall action.
- Just 37% have a process for submitting recall notices.
- Only 43% would report a product-related injury to the ACCC or another regulator.
- 37% rarely or never monitor recalls.
- 29% have never visited the ACCC Product Safety website.
- 9% have none of the nominated product-safety processes in place.
Most concerningly, 18% had become aware during the previous 12 months that a product they supplied was involved in a consumer injury.
Businesses themselves identified the biggest safety problems as inadequate testing or certification, failure to meet safety standards, poor manufacturing quality and hazardous materials. Reliance on suppliers for accurate information and limited resources were leading compliance barriers.
The report also found that 16% use AI tools such as ChatGPT for product-safety information.
AI can be extremely useful—but it is not a compliance certificate, accredited laboratory or substitute for competent technical review. If the question is poor, the information incomplete or the answer never verified, artificial intelligence can simply help produce non-compliance more efficiently.
The real message is straightforward:
Product safety cannot be managed by collecting documents and dropping them into a folder.
Businesses need a functioning system that identifies applicable requirements, verifies evidence, monitors changes and recalls, records decisions, escalates incidents and supports rapid corrective action.
Small businesses do not need unnecessary bureaucracy. They need clearer guidance, practical systems and competent support.
But “the supplier said it complies” remains one of the most expensive sentences in product safety.