When your renewal reminder notice is sent to you it has some serious implications that should be carefully considered. In most cases, the cost of a 12 month extension is the same as a 5 year renewal. In the case of Third-Party Certifiers (SAA Approvals, TUV Rheinland, ASA etc) and the NSW Office of Fair Trading, the granting of a 12 month extension is never guaranteed and is difficult to orchestrate. What we recommend here at QEC Global is that you seriously consider the un-sold stock levels you have in the field and whether you have the capacity or time to have fresh testing performed before the expiry date. We have had instances where a supplier has a lot of stock un-sold and the factory does not wish to support retesting because it doesn’t manufacture that item any longer. This can leave you in a situation where the approval certificate expires and you can no longer legally sell the stock in Australia or New Zealand.
Approval certificates are like car insurance; after a certain time on a certain date they lapse. You cannot continue to legally sell un-certified stock and your retailers will be returning the stock to you for disposal. So consider these things when we send you the renewal notice 6 months before certificate expiry. Do you want to run a “sale” on that stock to sell it down before expiry? Do you want to try to bring it up-to-date with the new standard and have it re-tested? (Sometimes this is an impossibility due to the engineering changes required, particularly where a new standard is introduced specifically to rid the marketplace of old design dangerous items). A recent case is where toasters cannot be renewed unless the design prevents the bread carriage handle from being pushed down by an “appliance cupboard” door. The new toaster design requirement is to have a recessed bread carriage handle. This means a complete engineering design change to the product. Once again and we keep saying the message “Please act on our expiry notice emails immediately so we can assess whether or not your product will be the next Special of the Month or have a starring role in your next “2 for one deal” before the certificate expires.