{"id":624075,"date":"2026-10-08T06:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/624075\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T06:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:10:11","slug":"retailer-taken-to-court-over-repeated-sale-of-non-compliant-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/624075\/","title":{"rendered":"Retailer taken to court over repeated sale of non-compliant products"},"content":{"rendered":"

Budget retailer PD Mart, formerly known as Panda Mart, has been taken to court by the Commerce Commission over allegations it repeatedly sold a wide range of non-compliant products \u2013 including those intended for young children.<\/p>\n

The commission alleged PD Mart offered 57 different non-compliant products, including children\u2019s toys and baby walkers. It also allegedly misrepresented seven types of children\u2019s car seats as complying with an international safety standard when they did not.<\/p>\n

PD Mart, which markets itself online as a “budget Chinese shopping mall”, operates two 6000sqm outlets in Auckland’s Pakuranga and Belfast in Christchurch, offering 50,000 products at low prices.<\/p>\n

Commerce Commission general manager, competition and fair trading Rebecca McAtamney said consumers shouldn’t have to choose between price and safety.<\/p>\n

“Regardless of what something costs or what shop you buy it from, businesses must comply with the New Zealand product safety requirements that apply to the goods they sell.<\/p>\n

“Product safety standards exist for a reason. When you walk into a shop and buy a product for your family, particularly a product designed for a child, you should be able to trust that the retailer has done the work needed to make sure it complies with New Zealand\u2019s safety requirements.<\/p>\n

“In this case, selling products that don\u2019t meet those standards puts New Zealand consumers, particularly young children, at risk.”<\/p>\n

The commission said its concerns “did not arise from a single visit or isolated incident”. From October 2024, staff visited PD Mart\u2019s stores and allegedly found non-compliant goods on multiple visits.<\/p>\n

During the investigation PD Mart recalled and removed potentially unsafe products, including children\u2019s toys, baby rattles, bikes and baby walkers.<\/p>\n

In September 2025, the Commission issued PD Mart a “stop now” letter over safety concerns involving children\u2019s car seats<\/a>. The notice prompted PD Mart to issue a recall of all car seats identified by the Commission and offering a refund to affected customers. <\/p>\n

At the time, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said a total of 176 car seats units sold were affected across seven models that had been recalled.<\/p>\n

Further action followed in 2026, when PD Mart gave court-enforceable undertakings to withdraw certain non-compliant products from sale and agreed not to sell products in categories where the commission had identified concerns for at least six months.<\/p>\n

\"Non-compliant<\/p>\n

Non-compliant car seats sold at Panda Mart. (Source: Product Safety) (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

McAtamney said it was the “scale and recurring nature of the issues we identified that are a serious concern for the commission”.<\/p>\n

It’s alleged PD Mart did not have adequate systems, policies and processes in place to meet its obligations, and that staff were not adequately trained.<\/p>\n

The commission also accused PD Mart of misrepresenting customers’ ability to return products under the Consumer Guarantees Act.<\/p>\n

“Consumers have rights when they buy products in New Zealand, and businesses need to understand those rights and meet their obligations. They have a responsibility to comply with the law and invest adequately in the systems, processes and staff training needed to meet their legal obligations.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Budget retailer PD Mart, formerly known as Panda Mart, has been taken to court by the Commerce Commission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51,138,158,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-624075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}