95% of toys purchased on Temu do not comply with European safety regulations

A test that gives you the shivers

In a test carried out in early 2024, the European Toy Industry Federation purchased 19 toys on the TEMU marketplace and had them tested by an independent laboratory.

Surprise ( no, not for us ), none of the toys fully complied with EU legislation and 18 posed a real risk to child safety.

For context , this purchase test was done following a study conducted in 2020 on toys sold on 4 marketplaces widely used by parents (Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress and Wish). During this study, 200 unbranded toys purchased from third-party sellers on the 4 marketplaces were tested with the following results:

• 97% of toys tested did not comply with the European Toy Safety Directive
• 76% of toys tested had defects that make them dangerous for children as young as 6 months

Back to the Temu test:

None of the 19 toys tested were legally sold in the EU and 18 posed a real risk to child safety.

They have been sent to an EU-accredited independent safety testing laboratory to test them in accordance with EU toy safety rules.

Here are the results:

• None of the toys comply with EU legislation. This means that they should not be on sale in the EU.
• 18 out of 19 toys do not meet the toy safety standard EN 71-1 or EN 71-3 and therefore pose significant risks to children. These hazards include cuts, entrapment, choking, strangulation, puncture and chemical hazard.

For example, a rainbow ribbon rattle for babies has several safety risks, including sharp edges on metal bells that could cut, small parts that could cause choking, and rigid protrusions that could lead to jams.

Another joy was that the migration of boron from a slime kit was 11 times higher than the legal limit for toys. Boron , present in commercial slime in the form of boric acid or borax, gives elasticity to the mixture . It is an ingredient whose presence in toys is of course highly regulated in the European Union.

A legal loophole

So how can we order products that are dangerous for children in Europe? This is a legal loophole that allows toys to be sold without an EU economic operator being responsible for their safety.

As a reminder, even if it is difficult to have escaped it, TEMU is an online shopping application whose popularity has increased considerably over the last two years. Although its Chinese parent company, PDD Holdings, does not publish market figures, TEMU is booming in the EU and particularly in France where it is one of the most downloaded applications by the French.

We can easily imagine that for every dangerous toy identified in this test on the platform, there are countless others unfound and in the hands of consumers across Europe.

There are simple rules to avoid buying crappy toys, here are our 3 tips for choosing a toy !

Edit of March 20: The European Union is tightening the rules for toys with a " digital passport " for toys sold in Europe.