If I bought even a cheap anko charger from Kmart or any physical retailer in guessing it would be fully compliant with whatever safety regulation we have.
Is this the same as Amazon? Would they have some sort of standard about what can and can't be sold though them? If not wouldn't they'd be big enough to catch heat if a few of their products sold through them burn down somebody's house?
Directly though Amazon = as in Amazon's choice or the Amazon basics stuff?
As in, if it says "Amazon AU" next to "sold by" below the buy now button (ignore "ships from").
This means that Amazon Australia has bought the item wholesale and is selling it to you directly. If there is any name other than "Amazon AU" next to that box Amazon Australia is only acting as a marketplace and has done only token quality assurance, or none at all.
There's a good chance that a battery bought on Amazon will be at least as high quality as the Anko one Kmart sells.
what is this "fully compliant with whatever safety regulation we have." ?
We're not even legally allowed to replace a power point without a qualified electrician. I would assume there would be some compliance requirements that would apply to electrical products too.
yes, i've tried to sell electrical stuff on amazon.com.au before and they do requires that your product have a compliance certificate. of course, the manufacturer could use a dodgy company to issue the certificate. cheaper brand might pass compliance but the quality of the components inside isn't there.
Yes anyone who want to sell/distribute power banks and wall ac chargers and any other electrical related items must make sure have their products have the AU/NZ safety tick marks on them, and if they're the manufacturer - those products need to be certified. This thing costs money. Big brands such as Anker and Belkin go through this certification process for their products - you can be sure their products are safe to use and will not be a fire hazard.
Yeah and I'm guessing all of those no name brands on Amazon they're just dropshipping and all of the chargers they sell are the same design from the same factory and manufacturer would've got the compliance checks
Ive had a few items arrive from amazon au with non insulated pins, which have been mandatory in Australia for nearly 20 years.
Anything sold directly by Amazon AU should be fairly safe. For anything else one takes one's chances.
The Amazon marketplace is full of dodgy sellers based in China and elsewhere. Amazon makes zero checks on the quality or regulatory compliance of this stuff.
And no, they won't "catch heat" any more than ebay will. Amazon will just claim that it's not them selling the product, it's a third party.
The best that you can say is that Amazon has very generous refund policies, although that won't be much comfort when your house burns down.
Still, I have a dozen little Amazon time bombs in drawers around the place just waiting to go off. No explosions yet. ;-)
I will say this, there's no guarantee of compliance at any standard Australian shopfront retailer either, including KMart, as you can tell from all the recall notices taped up around the entrances to just about every national supermarket and department store chain.
In Australia regulatory compliance is an honour system, and the solution if something goes wrong is to issue recall notices. See here, for example https://www.kmart.com.au/product-recall/ and here https://www.harveynorman.com.au/product-recall-notices and plenty of power banks and chargers here https://www.officeworks.com.au/information/policies/product-…
This is also Amazon's system https://www.amazon.com.au/your-product-safety-alerts (US site with the actual alerts https://www.amazon.com/product-safety-alerts )