Business Update

Trade Me and Energy Safety work together in the interests of public safety

The trend of increasing online trading with over a million items on offer at any one time and the ease of doing business online gave the opportunity to many to source and supply gas and electrical appliances. This has presented particular challenges for monitoring and enforcement.

Energy Safety has noticed many Trade Me members have little product knowledge and also little or no understanding of the regulatory requirements and therefore little regard for public safety.

Over the last six months Energy Safety have issued 30 warnings and has three prosecution cases pending with respect to Trade Me members who failed to take steps to ensure safety of appliances and fittings before supply.

The compliance work has resulted in significant numbers of non compliant appliances being removed from the market and an improvement in Trade Me members’ behaviour.

Energy Safety has been working with Trade Me to help them and their members better understand safety requirements and how these requirements lead to safety outcomes.

As a result of this work Trade Me has imposed a blanket ban on non approved electrical plugs and highlighted in its restricted items list the rules around the supply of electrical appliances and fittings.

This is a positive step forward and a major undertaking for Trade Me.