Stopping the rising flood of dangerous goods from Shein, Temu, AliExpress and more

The volume of unsafe products coming into Australia through online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Shein and Temu is likely running into millions of items a year by now. There are no effective gatekeepers in place to stop them. It’s mostly happening in the shadows, but some of these low-grade goods have already caused grievous bodily harm.

In one especially disturbing case, an 8-year-old named Daniella Jacobs-Herd suffered burns to 13% of her body when a hoodie purchased from Temu caught fire. The item – which was in breach of mandatory Australian safety standards – wasn’t recalled until four months after this incident. How many more of these flammable hoodies were bought in the meantime is anybody’s guess.

This was far from a one-off incident. When we contacted 2040 Australians in October last year, 132 people reported buying an unsafe product from a discount online marketplace in the previous two years. Of the 480 dangerous incidents that were linked to these products, 359 involved physical and emotional harm, including hospitalisation.

The unsafe goods are pouring in from overseas platforms despite many of them breaching mandatory Australian safety standards. Australia’s lack of an overarching law banning the sale of unsafe products isn’t helping. Many product categories in Australia have no mandatory safety standards to begin with.

The risks often only come to light when someone gets injured, and if the product is then recalled, the recall is usually voluntary.

The likelihood of ongoing consumer harm is why CHOICE has made online product safety the subject of our second designated (or “super”) complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

In July 2024, CHOICE was named by the federal government as one of three organisations with the authority to lodge such a complaint. The ACCC has to respond to designated complaints within 90 days.

“CHOICE research has identified a significant volume of unsafe, potentially banned and prohibited products available on online stores and marketplaces, and it’s likely that we’ve only scratched the surface of what could be out there,” says CHOICE senior policy and campaigns adviser Bea Sherwood.

“How many people have to be harmed by these products before we see stronger action taken to prevent unsafe, potentially banned and illegal products from being sold in the first place?”

Test failures in our accredited labs

Over the last two years, CHOICE has conducted several tests of products purchased from discount online marketplaces:

• In December 2025, CHOICE purchased 22 toys for children aged 3 and under from Amazon, eBay, Temu and AliExpress. Six had serious safety failures that could result in children choking on small and unsecured parts.
• In November 2025, we purchased 24 toys from the online marketplaces Shein, AliExpress, eBay and Amazon and tested them against the button and coin battery mandatory standards. 17 failed to meet the standards and posed serious safety risks.
• In September 2025, we purchased 14 children’s cots from online platforms including eBay and Baby Bunting Marketplace. Five had serious safety failures.
• In May 2024, we purchased and tested 15 coin and button battery-operated products from Temu. Every toy failed at least one requirement of the mandatory button battery safety standard.

Potentially banned products still widely available

Online platforms selling products that fail safety standards is only part of the problem.

Our research shows that products that may have been banned outright in Australia – such as novelty lighters, novelty cigarettes, sky lanterns and tongue studs – can still be found on Amazon, AliExpress, eBay and Shein. Many such products appear to be designed to appeal to small children.

Our research has also found potentially prohibited products for sale on online marketplaces such as AliExpress, Amazon and eBay, in particular flick and butterfly knives, which are illegal in all states and territories in Australia. (The devices allow users to brandish a knife blade with a flick of the wrist.)

We’ve also detected a disturbing trend known as “safety washing”, where online marketplaces advertise dangerous products as safe, such as sky lanterns marketed as “safer to use” and “flame resistant”. Sky lanterns are banned under the Australian Consumer Law due to safety risks that are all too obvious.

A global issue

These spot checks indicate a systemic issue in Australia that’s been further substantiated by testing overseas.

Last year, consumer organisations in Germany, France, Denmark and Belgium tested 162 products purchased on Shein and Temu across three categories: toys and products for children under three, USB chargers, and necklaces.

Well over half of the products bought on Temu (65%) failed to comply with EU safety standards, while the failure rate for Shein was 73%. The worst safety failures were in the children’s toys category, where all 27 products purchased on Shein and 26 out of the 27 bought on Temu failed.

(The testing was done by International Consumer Research and Testing, a London-based global consortium of consumer organisations, of which CHOICE is a member.)

ICRT project manager Sílvia Gomes da Silva tells CHOICE that recent EU Safety Gate annual reports show that alerts have reached record highs, with toys, electrical products and items containing hazardous chemicals among the top categories. A disproportionate share of the alerts are linked to products originating outside the EU.

“We have strong evidence that unsafe goods including those sold online can and do cause real injuries and health risks, and that alerts are rising,” Gomes da Silva says.

Stine Müller of the Danish Consumer Council was involved in the ICRT testing of children’s products purchased on Shein. He points to a critical regulatory loophole, one that also exists in Australia.

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) requires online marketplaces to remove goods from their platforms that don’t comply with EU standards, including goods from third-party suppliers. But there’s no law that says they have to prevent these products from being put up for sale in the first place.

“From our perspective, this is the key problem that needs to be addressed as it poses an unacceptable risk to European consumers,” Müller says.

Mishmash of regulation

Australians are buying more and more products through these online marketplaces every year. In fact, the growth rate has been exponential.

A 2025 Roy Morgan study found that 8.8 million people in Australia made at least one purchase from Amazon in the 12 months to September 2025, an increase of 900,000 over the previous 12 months.

The same study showed that 4.7 million people bought something from Temu, also a 900,000 year-on-year increase. And 2.6 million purchased at least once from Shein, representing a 600,000 year-on-year increase. Roy Morgan estimated that Temu and Shein had a combined increase of almost $1.3 billion in annual sales from Australia alone.

There is a high likelihood that many of these products pose safety risks, yet responsibility for product safety in Australia is spread across manufacturers, sellers and distributors. When harm occurs, it’s unclear who should be held accountable, and few businesses ever are. 

The millions of dodgy goods from online marketplaces are entering the Australian market virtually unchecked, and there is no all-encompassing law that says they must be safe. In our designated complaint, we’re calling on the federal government and the ACCC to tighten the regulatory regime over these fast-growing overseas businesses before more people get hurt.

“Enough is enough, unsafe products are being sold at scale to often unknowing consumers,” says Sherwood. “It’s time for the government to step in and introduce a general safety provision that stops these products from being sold in the first place.”

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Mark Serrels

Mark Serrels is the Editorial director at CHOICE. Mark oversees content on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. Prior to CHOICE, Mark worked in technology and games journalism. He edited magazines and worked on sites such as Kotaku, Gizmodo and CNET. Mark enjoys communicating the CHOICE mission to the broadest audience possible. He wants all Australians to be informed, entertained and above all, empowered as consumers. Mark has a Master of Arts from the University of Stirling, Scotland. LinkedIn

Mark Serrels is the Editorial director at CHOICE. Mark oversees content on a wide variety of topics and enjoys making complex subjects easy to understand. Prior to CHOICE, Mark worked in technology and games journalism. He edited magazines and worked on sites such as Kotaku, Gizmodo and CNET. Mark enjoys communicating the CHOICE mission to the broadest audience possible. He wants all Australians to be informed, entertained and above all, empowered as consumers. Mark has a Master of Arts from the University of Stirling, Scotland. LinkedIn