Consumers Shouldn’t Lower Expectations

Wal-Mart Watch’s executive director David Nassar’s editorial from the Huffington Post.

Memo to Media: Consumers Shouldn’t Lower Product Safety Expectations [Huffington Post]

Recent toy recalls have raised legitimate questions. While most of those questions focus on who is responsible for safeguarding our children, some irresponsible members of the media are questioning the validity of the public’s expectations of product safety. The comments are, on their face, ludicrous. Unfortunately, they are also symptomatic of an increasingly disturbing trend of diminished American expectations. This battle, for higher expectations, is at the heart of the fight raging in America over Wal-Mart; product safety is perhaps the most glaring example.

During an interview last week, I was asked if I thought Americans accept that we live in a “buyer beware” culture. It caused me to reflect on the times I have spent living overseas in developing countries. When shopping in an open air market in Yemen, for example, there is a normal bartering that takes place over a product and, other than food, little expectation of product safety beyond what you ensure by what you pay. In other words, you get what you pay for.

At some point in America’s past, however, we moved away from that kind of shopping experience, into one dominated by larger retailers, with national brands and government watchdogs. We came to expect that our wealth increasingly demanded a certain standard of safety in our products and we countenanced no less. Such expectations were about business and government.

And it was not just safety. We expected customer service and we expected decent wages and benefits - a job that paid a living. This was, I believe, a reflection of our national sense of self as the biggest, strongest, wealthiest power on the planet.

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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 12 | 1 comments | Permalink

U.S. Senate Holds Hearing on Toy Safety

Earlier today, CSPAN.org had the hearing live. As soon as they archive the video on their website, we’ll bring you the link. 

Posted by Web Team on Wednesday, September 12 | 0 comments | Permalink

Lead Paint Used to Lower Product Costs

This story from today’s New York times shows that it was price considerations that led Chinese toy factories to use lead paint on their products. As has been said time and again on this blog, Wal-Mart is the force in the market demanding lower costs, even if it comes at the price of safety.

Why Lead in Toy Paint? It’s Cheaper [New York Times]

When Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker, announced its third recall in six weeks this month, the company asked consumers to return toys because they contained dangerously high levels of lead paint.

Toxic paint also turned up in several other products Mattel recalled in recent weeks, and in about 16 other recalls this year, including the popular Thomas & Friends train sets, according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

All the products were made in China.

Why is lead paint — or lead, for that matter — turning up in so many recalls involving Chinese-made goods?

The simplest answer, experts and toy companies in China say, is price. Paint with higher levels of lead often sells for a third of the cost of paint with low levels. So Chinese factory owners, trying to eke out profits in an intensely competitive and poorly regulated market, sometimes cut corners and use the cheaper leaded paint.

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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 11 | 19 comments | Permalink

Consumer Safety Summit Unlikely to Bring Progress, Say Some

Chinese officials responsible for overseeing product safety are in Washington today meeting with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Experts have expressed doubt that the meeting will yield much progress, perhaps because the CPSC seems to be living in a state of total denial. Nonetheless, the doubtful outlook only reiterates the need for retailers and other importers to take responsibility for products from China.

U.S. and Chinese officials to meet on safety issues [Reuters via International Herald Tribune]

U.S. and Chinese officials meeting this week after months of recalls of lead-tainted Chinese toys, defective tires and other unsafe products are unlikely to make a breakthrough, according to experts.

The consumer safety talks on Monday and Tuesday overlap with separate meetings on meat and poultry standards and food safety between officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and their counterparts at the Chinese health and farm ministries.

As timely as the two countries’ consumer agency meetings appear to be, experts are not expecting major changes.

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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink

MomsRising on Toxic Toys

MomsRising, the energetic mothers-rights organization, has launched a campaign for safety toys. Visit their website for more information, or click on the links below to learn about recalls and tell Congress to make toys safer.

First it was toxic lead paint on Thomas the Train Engines, then it was toxic Doras, Big Birds, and Elmos--and now it’s toxic Barbies. On Wednesday Mattel Inc. announced the third major recall of Chinese-made toys due to toxic lead paint this summer (yes, we said third!). Tens of millions of toys have been recalled. What’s a parent to do?!

1. KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE BY RECEIVING REAL-TIME ALERTS ABOUT TOY RECALLS:
Find out about dangerous products being recalled as soon as the notice is made--so you can get toxic toys out of your house.

Sign on here to receive real-time email notices from the Consumer Product Safety Commission about recalled toys.

After you sign on, please forward this email to the other parents in your children’s classes so they have an opportunity to sign on to get recall notices as well. Right now the Consumer Product Safety Commission is working to sign on one million new people to receive these potentially lifesaving and free recall notices via email.

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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink

Dangerous Products Start to Taint Retailers

More and more recalled products have one thing in common: Wal-Mart. A new marketing survey shows consumers distrust Wal-Mart and the products it sells. Wal-Mart continues to blame manufacturers for the problems with its products, but unless the company radically changes its business model, unsafe products will keep showing up on the company’s shelves, and people will keep avoiding Wal-Mart for those reasons.

Research: China’s Recall Woes Bad For Wal-Mart [Brandweek]

Last week 675,000 Barbie accessories were recalled as the pile of tainted products from China grows into a mountain. While this is obviously bad news for Barbie-maker Mattel, the ill will from the plague of product recalls has also begun to affect Wal-Mart, according to a new study.

The survey, published by Strategic Name Development, a marketing consultancy based in Minneapolis, was based on responses from 503 participants in an online panel from Aug. 22-23. The sample set was balanced by gender, geography, income and age to produce results at a 95% confidence.

It asked respondents to answer questions regarding their perceptions of both Wal-Mart and Target following the recalls.

Only 40% of respondents felt that they could trust Wal-Mart to protect them from products made in China. The study further showed that 39% of respondents said they were more fearful of buying products from Wal-Mart, versus 22% for Target.

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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, September 10 | 1 comments | Permalink

Wal-Mart’s Critical Role in Toy Safety

A new fact sheet from Wal-Mart Watch examines Wal-Mart’s enormous role in toy safety in America. Wal-Mart sells more toys than any other retailer in the county, importing them from countries with lax safety standards through manufactures like Mattel and Disney which are under enormous pressure to keep prices low, often at the cost of quality. As one toy company put it:

“Wal-Mart and these other buyers keep pushing for better terms, regardless of the conditions we face,” adds the owner of a textiles plant in the Shanghai area, wishing not to be identified. “Everyone is facing higher costs, but they can get away with it because the orders are so large and because there are so many companies competing for the same business.” [Financial Times, 9/4/07]

Wal-Mart has a history of consumer safety deception, and the safety standards it recently announced to not go far enough. Regardless of how many toys the company tests, safety problems will persist so long as the toy industry relies on dangerously cheap production methods.

Click here to download the fact sheet. (PDF)

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, September 10 | 1 comments | Permalink

Disney to Inspect Toys Sold at Wal-Mart

Disney to Test Character Toys for Lead Paint [New York Times]

Toys and other children’s products like jewelry will be tested off the shelves of all retailers that sell Disney toys - including Wal-Mart and KB Toys as well as stores in other parts of the world. The tests will start within next two weeks.

Reacting to three separate recalls of Mattel toys found to contain unsafe levels of lead paint, The Walt Disney Company said it would begin its own testing of toys featuring Disney characters, including random testing of products already on store shelves.

Executives at Disney made the decision to institute the testing on Thursday and intend to inform Mattel and other toy manufacturers today.

“It sends the message that we are looking over their shoulders,” said Andy Mooney, the chairman of Disney’s consumer products division.

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Posted by Web Team on Monday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink

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