CPSIA Choking Hazard Warnings and Material Content Limits

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 and the Federal Hazardous Substances Act require the display of appropriate cautionary statements relating to the choking hazards of toys and games intended for children 12 and under on the product packaging and in certain advertisements.

These cautionary statements must be displayed in Internet advertisements for applicable products. This includes all applicable product detail pages on Amazon.

Lead and phthalates limits on all children’s products

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act also prescribes strict limits on the content of certain materials in products intended for children, including lead and phthalates. Sellers should familiarize themselves with the effective dates of each applicable limit and work with their suppliers to ensure that all products sold are compliant with the limits in force. Sellers are responsible for tracking and complying with any regulations issued by the CPSC.

Detailed information is available on the Consumer Product Safety Commission ("CPSC") website.

What the choking hazard warning requirement means to you

In order to add applicable choking hazard warnings to their product listing, sellers on Amazon should do the following:

1. Determine if a "cautionary statement" (choking hazard warning) applies to the products you sell on Amazon; and
2. Provide such statements to Amazon as part of the product listing (product detail page) using our seller tools.

The cautionary statement(s) you choose for your product will appear on the product's detail page in a yellow "Warning" box, located above the Product Description.

Below is an example of how the warning will appear. The actual warnings on your product detail pages will depend on the statements you choose.

How to verify & upload choking hazard warning information

Step 1: Verify which of your products require a cautionary statement

A. Verification

You will need to verify which (if any) of the products you sell on Amazon require cautionary statements (choking hazard warnings) under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

The cautionary statements apply to toys and games intended for children 12 years of age and under, regardless of the category in which these products are listed.

You can verify which (if any) cautionary statements should be included for a particular product by:

Contacting the product manufacturer OR checking the product's packaging for the applicable choking hazard warnings.

If you are the manufacturer of a product, you are responsible for determining whether the cautionary statements apply to your product. Amazon cannot verify this information for you.

B. The cautionary statements (choking hazard warnings)

The following are the six cautionary statements (warnings) that may apply to your products :

• Choking Hazard - Small Parts
  • WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD—Small parts
  • Not for children under 3 yrs.

• Choking Hazard - Is a Small Ball
  • WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD—This toy is a small ball.
  • Not for children under 3 yrs.

• Choking Hazard - Contains Small Ball
  • WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD—Toy contains a small ball.
  • Not for children under 3 yrs.

• Choking Hazard - Balloon
  • WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD--Children under 8 yrs. can choke or suffocate on uninflated or broken balloons.
  • Adult supervision required.
  • Keep uninflated balloons from children.
  • Discard broken balloons at once.

• Choking Hazard - Is a Marble
  • WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD—This toy is a marble.
  • Not for children under 3 yrs.

• Choking Hazard - Contains a Marble
  • WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD—Toy contains a marble
  • Not for children under 3 yrs.

You may select up to four of these six warnings. You should never need to choose more than four warnings, as a warning that a product "contains" a small ball or marble should not apply simultaneously with the corresponding warning that a product "is" a small ball or marble.

Step 2: Update your products with the required information

After you have verified which of your products require cautionary statements on their detail pages, and which values apply to each of those products, you are ready to update your detail pages with those values. You can do this using our updated seller tools.

A. New data fields

In order for you to provide the required information for your product listings, we've created two additional data fields in our product information feeds and seller tools. The new fields are listed below.

Label Name	Definition	Values
cpsia-warning1 cpsia-warning4	Use this field to indicate if a cautionary statement relating to the choking hazards of children's toys and games applies to your product. Cautionary statements that you select will be displayed on the product detail page. If no cautionary statement applies to the product, select "no_warning_applicable."	Select the appropriate statement from the following Valid Values: choking_hazard_balloon choking_hazard_contains_a_marble choking_hazard_contains_small_ball choking_hazard_is_a_marble choking_hazard_is_a_small_ball choking_hazard_small_parts no_warning_applicable
cpsia-warning-description	This field has been created for future use in the event that other product safety warnings (in addition to the six provided by the CPSIA) are later required to be displayed on the detail page. Do not use this field unless otherwise advised by Amazon.com.

Refer to Section B for information on how to use these fields in specific tools.

B. Using the new fields in tools

After you have verified which of the products you sell on Amazon require cautionary statements on their detail pages, and which of the 6 values listed above apply to each of those products, you are ready to upload your information.

Below are instructions for using seller tools to upload your CPSIA warning information to your product details pages.

Inventory file templates

The new CPSIA columns have been added to all flat files for every category. Because each product can have up to four values applicable to it, there are four columns in the template.

To submit your information using inventory file templates:

• Go to the inventory file template page in Seller Central and download the updated templates.
• Fill in these columns with the appropriate value(s) as they apply to your products. (Each column can have one value [cautionary statement] and each product can have up to four values.)
• Upload the file as usual to Amazon.

Add A Product

You can use the Add a Product tool to add the choking hazard warnings to your applicable products one at a time.

• On the Inventory link, click Add A Product. Enter your product's ISBN in the search box and scroll through the product information until you find the CSPIA Cautionary Statement selections.
• Select your values and click Save & continue.

XML

XML users need to know the following to update their product detail pages:

• The Product.xsd has been amended to contain the following new fields: CPSIAWarning and the CPSIAWarningDescription.
• Use the appropriate value(s) for your applicable product(s).
• Remember that you should leave the CPSIAWarningDescription blank unless instructed otherwise by Amazon.