There are lots of ways that retailers can break the law, even inadvertently. Anyone can get caught out buying from a supplier that we think is legitimate, and not fully checking all the regulations on the boxes and scanning all the QR codes.
Most recently, I had some people visit the store trying to sell me mobile phone products like chargers and SIM cards. They didn’t have any ID, so I told them to come back with ID and then I’d look at the products and maybe talk business. They’ve not come back. But there might be retailers who think, ‘Why not, they’ll cost me £1.50 and I can sell them for £5,’ and don’t think any further than that.
If you’re not checking people’s ID and making sure they’re part of an official company, then you’re going to have a problem. You need to keep digging until you’re clear in your mind that the product you’re going to be selling is legal. You want there to be no chance of you getting burnt legally or, worse, someone getting hurt because of non-genuine products.
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The main category that I’ve seen in recent years causing major problems in this regard is retailers getting their vapes all wrong. There are so many new products on the market arriving all the time with different numbers of puffs and different strengths and also different products in them. That all has to be checked by retailers. They might be legal in some countries, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be legal here.
Anything imported needs to be checked more rigorously to make sure it complies with UK trading standards. We were buying US candy and so drinks from the supplier from whom we buy our vapes. But I saw an article in RN talking about the illegal ingredients in some of them and decided to stop selling them. I know there are genuine items out there, but I don’t want to run the risk or have my customers run the risk. That’s why trade magazines are so important because they bring these things to our attention. We don’t stock US products, and until I find a supplier that’s been checked and that I know is completely legal, I won’t stock them.
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