A consumer investigation has again put online marketplaces on the spot over what gets sold on them. The UK group Which? said it found 150 potentially dangerous baby products listed across eight big platforms, using nothing more sophisticated than basic keyword and image searches, Tech Digest reported. That the items were so easy to find is much of the point.
What Which? found
According to the group's findings, the 150 items fell into three groups: 54 self-feeding devices that hold a bottle against a baby's mouth, 37 infant sleep pillows, and 59 baby sleeping bags that failed British safety standards. The products were spread across Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, OnBuy, TikTok Shop and Wish, Tech Digest reported. Etsy carried the most flagged listings, 41, followed by Amazon with 36, according to Retail Gazette.
The safety concerns are not abstract. Self-feeding "bottle propping" devices are linked to choking and to fluid entering the lungs, while soft pillows and non-compliant sleeping bags raise the risk of suffocation, hazards that safe-sleep guidance has warned about for years. Which? said some of the products could contribute to an infant's death.
The platforms pulled the items, but that is the problem
When Which? flagged the listings, most platforms acted. Amazon, Etsy, AliExpress, Alibaba, eBay, OnBuy and TikTok Shop all confirmed they had removed items, with TikTok Shop saying it would notify affected buyers; Wish did not respond, Retail Gazette reported. Amazon said it had strict requirements for baby products in its store.
But the pattern, dangerous item listed, spotted by an outside group, then quietly removed, is exactly what consumer advocates find inadequate. It is reactive, not preventive. If a watchdog with simple searches can surface 150 risky products, the implication is that the platforms' own up-front checks are letting them through in the first place. Sue Davies, Which?'s head of consumer-protection policy, argued that babies' lives are being put at risk because marketplaces are not stopping dangerous products reaching customers.
The accountability gap
Underneath the safety story is a business and legal one. Traditional retailers vet the goods they put on their shelves and are liable for them. Marketplaces, by contrast, mostly act as venues for millions of third-party sellers, and current UK rules leave them largely off the hook for the safety of goods those sellers list. That gap is a structural advantage: platforms capture the sales while outsourcing quality control to sellers who may be anonymous or based overseas.
Britain has begun to move on this. The Product Regulation and Metrology Act, passed in 2025, gives the government power to modernize product-safety rules and to place new duties on online marketplaces through follow-on regulation, such as verifying that products meet safety rules and cooperating with enforcement. Which? is pressing for those duties to arrive quickly and to carry real financial penalties.
Why it matters
For the platforms, tighter rules would raise costs and force heavier investment in vetting, chipping away at the light-touch model that helped marketplaces grow so fast. For regulators and shoppers, the case is a test of whether the law can catch up with how much commerce now runs through a handful of intermediaries. And for parents, the practical takeaway is more immediate: a product being available on a large, familiar platform is not a guarantee that it is safe. This article is informational and general in nature, not safety or legal advice.
