Hi, my daughter, age 20 and disabled and unable to go out to work due to her disabilities (for many reasons) and recently decided to start a new hobby making jewellery.  The individual parts were bought online and she found it easy to make cheap ear rings and necklaces.  They all look really nice.

My wife suggested she try to sell them online and she found success as her products became quite popular.  Customers as far afield as USA were keen to purchase, she extended to making bookmarks and other novelty stuff.  A lot of it was Harry Potter and the website she was using was warned about selling that so she makes similar stuff and calls it something else.  One lesson learned.

Now she is looking to make up and sell party bags and Christmas boxes and bought a lot of stuff yesterday, including sweets and things on short wooden sticks.

While I do not wish to kill her initiative I think we should be careful about rules and regs.

There has been some people come to our house to view and buy jewellery.

I am aware of regs about foodstuffs, alergies etc. insurance should be involved but I would like to know what else we should be doing.

Looking forward to some great advice now.  Thanks,

https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/webReport

Link to the RAPEX report - basically Europes rapid information exchange for issues with non-food products

UK Trading Standards used to submit but now report through the Office for Product Safety and Standards

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-product-safety-and-standards

For an independent there can be lots of problems sourcing suitable materials let alone any copyright issues.

If you flick through the reports on these web sites you will see jewellery containing heavy metals and nickel (allergen), leather has issues with chromium in tanning, plastics (especially toys) is phthalates, small powerful magnets that can get stuck in the inetstines, recycled rubber can contain PAH banned from skin contact products. You also need to be aware of items that look like food but are not in case they are swallowed by children or items that can entice play e.g. novelty gas lighters, even draw strings on childrens clothes are regulated to prevent strangulation. All matters to be avoided.

Testing for conformance to for example the Toy Directive can be expensive.

Short wooden sticks (if not the flat ice cream type) may not be suitable - if you look at "drum stick" or swizzle lollies they are on a hollow tube, similarly plastic biros have a hole in their tube and cap in case they get swallowed.

Avoid battery devices where possible - a lot of manufacturers forget to add a screw to the battery cover especially important where they are easily swallowed button cells.

Then of course there are the customs duties on materials being purchased and goods being sold outside of GB - we are officially a third country no longer part of the EU.

As with everything in life the tax man will eventually want their cut.

It is not insurmountable just a lot to consider when moving beyond selling a few bits and pieces privately online.

One of the better point reference sources for trading standards https://www.businesscompanion.info/

Originally Posted by: SammyK

Hi firesafety, 

I've no advice what you can do re: regs etc, however can you please DM me the link to her website? my daughter would love HP related things for xmas and these could be good stocking ideas :-) 

Hi Sammy, I would DM you if I knew how .....

I've messaged you privately :-) 

Originally Posted by: firesafety101

There has been some people come to our house to view and buy jewellery.

If it reaches business levels of traffic bear in mind your insurer may not like this.  My home insurance allows me to conduct clerical business activities, but not hold stock and not have visitors.  Our company insurance likewise requires that staff working at home do not have business visitors.  However, I don't know a solution - I do just do clerical business activities (which apparently includes pontificating to you lot).

If you get enough visitors that your neighbours don't like it, the local council may also take a dim view (but it's vanishingly unlikely they'll notice if no-one complains - my next-door-neighbour runs a several-stock-deliveries-per-week ebay business and has not triggered the council).

If you have a tenancy your landlord may not like it either - largely because residential leases and business leases are governed by different law. In practice, none of our staff have had a problem with their tenancy for working from home (as far as I know) but they are all just doing clerical activities, and don't have visitors (becasue our insurance mandates that, as above).

Originally Posted by: achrn

Originally Posted by: firesafety101

There has been some people come to our house to view and buy jewellery.

If it reaches business levels of traffic bear in mind your insurer may not like this.  My home insurance allows me to conduct clerical business activities, but not hold stock and not have visitors.  Our company insurance likewise requires that staff working at home do not have business visitors.  However, I don't know a solution - I do just do clerical business activities (which apparently includes pontificating to you lot).

If you get enough visitors that your neighbours don't like it, the local council may also take a dim view (but it's vanishingly unlikely they'll notice if no-one complains - my next-door-neighbour runs a several-stock-deliveries-per-week ebay business and has not triggered the council).

If you have a tenancy your landlord may not like it either - largely because residential leases and business leases are governed by different law. In practice, none of our staff have had a problem with their tenancy for working from home (as far as I know) but they are all just doing clerical activities, and don't have visitors (becasue our insurance mandates that, as above).

Thanks, the house is mine but not insured for business use however my wife has insurance for carers who enter to see Annie so that might cover ?????

At present Annie "manufacturers" to order but is currently working on a christmas gift box idea so there may be a little storage.