eSignature Legitimacy for Employee Compliance Survey in European Union

How to eSign a document: eSignature legitimacy for Employee Compliance Survey in European Union

hey my name is Frederick and in this compliance gate video tutorial I will brief you on the essentials on clothing and textiles regulations in the EU so let's get started so in this video I will cover reach that's heavy metals and chemicals children's clothing regulations labeling requirements and also clothing lab testing right let's jump into it so first we have reached reach is a framework regulation in the EU covering not just textiles but every material including well alloys plastics and so on but in this video we focused on clothing in textiles so what rich does is that reach lists SVHC substances of very high concern this covers lead cadmium mercury and well a few at a hundred couple hundred substances that may be found in textiles the good thing is is that you don't need to know which substances are regulated so when you book for example a lab test when you buy from a factory in China or Vietnam or well even within the EU you just have to say that this product well specifically the fabric and the dye has to be compliant with reach so from your perspective you don't need to know which substances and also which limits that EU sets so it's quite practical in that sense it's quite easy to deal with it because you've got this one framework regulation that basically does the job for you so you don't have to keep track of the different chemicals heavy metals and so on that's all restricted now how do you make sure that your product or reach compliance I'm gonna get back to this at the end of this video but it comes down to lab testing okay now lab testing is the only way to verify that a piece of fabric is compliant which reach but I'm gonna get back to that end of the video another framework well this is not a regulation but a well it's a voluntary framework or or Ecotec standard one hundred developed by a I think they're Swiss Swiss based organization or we're Kotex and what they do is that they sort of merge all the main legal requirements in a major markets of the world including the EU United States and well that might be hid actually anyway that's another way that you can actually refer to reach compliance as Reach is actually included in standard 100 but if you just want to sell in the EU then referring to reach is is the easiest way right step 2 well part 2 of this video we have children's clothing now reach applies to every product doesn't man if you sell a t-shirt for well adults or well baby baby wear however they're all regulations that apply specifically to babies and children normally defined as 12 years or younger this doesn't cover chemicals and heavy metals but they're these to en standards specifically regulate and set technical requirements for fabric permeability and also physical properties covering drawstrings and so on so if you intend to manufacture export or import children's clothing that you need to comply with en 14 8 7 8 and possibly e n 14 6 8 2 now keep in mind this video may be outdated tomorrow the purpose is to just give you a brief very brief introduction so it may be additional Ian's standards that do apply to your product but you can for example search the British Standards Institute online store for European standards you can just search for example children's clothing or children's nightwear for example you will find a list a list will pop up and that way you can also assess if additional regulations apply now step three we have labeling requirements labeling requirements specifically for science so in the EU you need to well that's actually the case pretty much everywhere specify the fiber composition and this refers to well the textile itself so if you're selling 100% cotton while a t-shirt and hundreds on cotton it has to be labeled as such care instructions this should well accurately explain how while washing drying and so on and this also has to be in the language it has to be written in the language where you intend to sell the product which can be quite tricky in a marketplace such as the EU where we have I don't know 25 different I don't know 30 different official languages but my recommendation is that you go in two main languages if you plan to sell EU wine stay on Amazon that's of course English French German and possibly also Spanish okay yeah even even Italian another option if you plan to start within one you country you can start with that language what for example Danish Dutch just to give you an example and also add an English language label I don't think that the postal services in the EU would ever cease and destroy or issue a recall based on a non well local language label so English is normally enough and this should not just be a sticker it should be permanent two ways to apply that you can use a patch such as the orange thing you see on the left or you can also have a print we see that more and more print in the neck for example as long as it's permanent it's okay optional sized is actually not mandatory but it's gonna be a hard time selling your pieces if you don't have some sort of size indication and the EU is actually publishing and sanitized well sizes chart while guideline size charts it's up to you if you want to use them but clearly you want to avoid returns so you need some sort of for this point a country of origin such as made in China made in made in Vietnam made well anywhere his action of manotaur in the EU at least not for clothing alright that's what not least we have textiles lab testing and the point of lab testing is that you verify if the material one specifically the fabric is rich or en compliant is well if this concerns Schiller's clothing ok so the way this works is that you can purchase material samples you can you can you can also well collect complete units say a finished t-shirt for example and you can send that to a well third party compliance testing company a few of them Intertek SGS g mine hong kong will be based for example and you submit well you basically just send over a sample they give you a quote and within one two weeks they give you a test report which basically lists out all the substances that they believe within the reach regulation that they should check for your product okay so as i said it is the compliance testing company that makes that assessment making your life a lot easier and it will also list the result for every single substance that they have well tested your product ing to and hopefully it's gonna say ND everywhere which means not detected okay and that basically means the product pass the test because it reaches binary well compliance as a whole is binary either you either the product passed the test or it does not there's no way to say okay well it's 90% good it's ninety percent legal you can you can go and sell it it's the thing is that if your product is non-compliant meaning that out of say four hundred substances just to give you an example just one fails meaning that it detects an amount for that specific substance above the limit then the product is that's non-compliant okay so for that reason lab testing all or not mandatory at least not for reach it still laughing we strongly recommend because it's the only way to actually verify that the product is selling is compliant however lab testing is not free okay you're looking at at least a hundred US per fabric and and I should also specify per color okay so you got one well you got the same polyester fabric for example one is green one is blue one is orange okay so we got three colors that's gonna be three times a hundred three hundred okay so it multiplies each fabric and color that you need to get tested okay right so let's summarize the compliance process now when it comes to textiles it's not really that difficult so number one you have to confirm the regulations that apply to your product and reach possibly also en standards which apply all over the EU okay it used to be national standards these days they are harmonized meaning that Ian's standards apply everywhere Germany Sweden where I'm from about to say the UK but we'll see about that Germany Spain etc so you got one set of regulations or standards to be specific now in step two you have to create a texas-sized label files your supplier will not create that for your assuming you are manufacturing overseas which many of you are actually create that label file and send it to them so that's step two and step three you have to do the product samples be that fabric samples or collection you have to collect products directly from the mass-produced batch or products say in China and then book third-party lab testing so this is a three step compliance process for textiles now we have a few questions that we get all the time so let's just clarify that in this video right I'm importing products overseas am I responsible for ensuring compliance yes you are now the way it works is that when you as an importer base in the EU you import products from well for example China or India and it turns out that your product is non-compliant then you will be responsible for that mean that you will issue you will have to issue a recall basically you know refund your bias and well you know make sure the day you know send back the product not that common when it comes to textiles but it can still happen authorities national authorities not EU level authorities are actually doing inspection to conduct inspections in in you know shopping malls and even buy products online it's very fine if the products are compliant by you know through am i doing their own testing so you have to remember that you would not get any assistance from your overseas suppliers when it comes to ensuring compliant following the procedure that I just showed you so this means that you need to instruct a supplier that they have to ensure that the fabrics they use because not every fabric in the world is reached compliant okay but they have to specifically use to reach compliant fabrics okay except you you have to create a label files ing to EU regulations and then you have to send that file it could be a PDF it could be a it could be a PNG could be made in Adobe Illustrator but you have to make that file and you have to send that supplier and tell them hey you have to print this as an island patch or or print it directly on the fabric on the you know inside and the neck for example and then it's up to you to book lab testing and well you also have to pay for it not can I get any subsidies from the supplier well I got a bit ahead of myself already answer that question but anyhow you will cover the lab testing costs it's not covered by the supplier and a lot of buyers are while a negative surprise to say the least when they have a collection of products maybe maybe ten different t-shirts just to give you an example in different colors and so on they get a quote from say our thousand two thousand five hundred dollars and as I said lab testing cost at least when it comes to textiles it's very much based on a number of number of fabrics number of colors so even though this may stifle the creative process the best way to actually read your lab testing cost is by not using 10 different or 15 different colors and fabrics if you can find a way where you can use the same fabrics in the same colors across different SKUs across different designs then you don't have to test every single design okay then you can if you if you have ten different excuse but you just they all made up of the same five five colors and fabrics then then you save money yes you only have to define lab sets in that case and truth be told you don't have to test every single fabric every single color okay and I would say to most of our customers don't test every single fabric in every single color but compliance is still you know by definition you have to comply and well the more fabric the colors you have the more lab says you you you you should you should be doing okay now how do you create the lattice or the label file well as I said you can I mean it could be hand drawing it could be as long as as long as your consumer you can actually read it you know it's it's that's it really so I recommend that you use something like Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator it doesn't really matter as long as you can turn that into a PDF or AI file or EPS file or JPEG or whatever that the supplier can print just don't make the mistake of telling the supplier hey I need this I need this I need that I need I need I need carry instructions or even worse hey I want you to make a label that's EU compliant for example that doesn't work because you know it's not a supplies job to keep track of you know different different and changing compliance requirements in overseas markets so you have to create this and if you don't if you don't have a program you just don't have the expertise to create a label well you can just find someone enough work they can make it for you've like 25 bucks or something maybe even fiber but you need to create a label file okay now what could happen if you import non-compliant products now to be fair it's a big difference between importing and selling t-shirts compared to say plastic dolls or power banks because t-shirts explode in your face they rarely self ignite and and and and and burn down an entire an entire house so yeah it's a low-risk product what we see in the EU is that national authorities already mentioned is actually they they do spot checks in like physical stores like retailers brick-and-mortar they also buy products from online stores and well of course not under the real you know organization names but you know ghost purchases and they take that to the facilities and they do lab testing two reasons one is to get a statistics okay to feel the market like how what is a rate was a ratio of products on the market imported products which can actually pass reach for example or other regulations depending on the product but then is also to put pressure on importers to actually enforce this you know to give you an incentive because there has to be regulations also have to be complimented by you know appropriate enforcement and in having cases with authorities market surveillance authorities in various EU states basically saying hey your product is non-compliant you have to pull this and a big retailer okay that's you know they lose a couple of million million euros that's like 0.5% of entire revenue doesn't really matter but if you're a small business just launching a first collection and and and you get you know recall notice like that is game over UK oh so for that reason compliance testing when it comes to tech science is essentially about about risk management my advice is that you do at least a couple of tests to get an idea at least on a per fabric basis to have documentation and have an idea a pretty good idea that whether your products are compliant or non-compliant and and clearly that all lab testing has to be done before you ship the products into the EU or if you're an exporter before you export to the all right if you want assistance with compliance you can go to compliance gate comm slash help and fill out this form product name for a category tell us what what sort of assistance you need specify the target market with the product manufactured would you plan to sell it and your details and we would get back to you with information about how we can help you make sure that your products are compliant and this is a free service of course we will send you a price quotation detailing what we can do and the cost but it's completely free to request a quotation on compliance gate comm slash help