Product safety requirements are a market access barrier as real as tariffs, and they are frequently discovered late — after tooling, after production, occasionally after a shipment is refused entry.
Establish requirements before designing
The cost of compliance rises sharply the later it is addressed. A requirement identified at design stage is a specification; the same requirement identified after tooling is a redesign.
For each target market, establish:
- Mandatory standards applying to your product category.
- Conformity assessment — whether self-declaration is acceptable or third-party testing and certification is required.
- Marking requirements — conformity marks, safety warnings, and where they must appear.
- Labelling — language requirements, country of origin, ingredient or material disclosure, importer details.
- Restricted substances, which vary considerably and change.
- Packaging and waste obligations, including producer responsibility schemes.
Requirements are frequently stricter than New Zealand’s
New Zealand has comparatively few mandatory product safety standards, relying more on the general safety obligations in consumer law. Many export markets are more prescriptive.
Areas where the gap is widest: electrical products, children’s products and toys, cosmetics and personal care, food contact materials, and anything with a battery.
Chemical restrictions in particular differ substantially. A substance permitted here may be restricted or prohibited in the European Union or in specific US states, and the restrictions are updated regularly.
Testing and certification
Third-party testing by an accredited laboratory is required for many categories. Costs and lead times are significant and should be in the project budget from the start.
Where a market requires certification by a designated body, that body’s approval is what counts — a report from a different laboratory, however competent, may not be accepted.
Keep the technical file: test reports, design documentation, risk assessment, bill of materials with material declarations, and the declaration of conformity where required. Market surveillance authorities can request it, and the importer in that market will need it.
Who is responsible in the destination market
Most jurisdictions place obligations on the importer or an authorised representative established locally. Understand which party in your chain holds them, because it affects your contractual arrangements.
Where you sell direct to consumers online, you may be treated as the responsible party without a local presence, which is a position worth confirming rather than assuming.
Recalls
Have a recall plan before you need one. It should cover:
- Traceability — batch or serial identification allowing you to determine exactly which product is affected. Without it, a problem with one production run becomes a recall of everything.
- Notification obligations in each market, which have timeframes.
- Communication to distributors, retailers and consumers.
- Logistics of returning or destroying product.
- Insurance — product recall cover is separate from product liability and is not standard.
New Zealand also has its own reporting obligations for unsafe goods and for products that have caused death or injury.
Product liability
Liability regimes differ, and some markets impose strict liability on the producer for defective products regardless of fault.
Check your product liability insurance covers the markets you sell into, at limits appropriate to those jurisdictions. Many New Zealand policies exclude certain markets or apply lower limits, and exporters frequently discover this at claim.
The domestic overlay
Selling in New Zealand, the Consumer Guarantees Act requires goods to be of acceptable quality including safe. The Fair Trading Act prohibits unsubstantiated representations, so safety claims need reasonable grounds at the time they are made.
Meeting a strict overseas standard is a genuine selling point, and stating it requires the evidence to back it.
MBIE publishes product safety information and unsafe goods notices, the Commerce Commission publishes Fair Trading Act guidance, and NZTE publishes market entry material covering regulatory requirements. All free.
General information only, not legal advice.
