If you sell online

[Waitingforastartofall]

Do you have any kind of license to sell homemade teddies, craft.

I currently only make things for at home and family but am curious as to whether to sell on local pages or fetes you need any kind of license.

So far im pretty much a novice so wouldnt be looking into this for a long time.

You need to be registered as self-employed with HMRC. You need to either pay NI or have a small earnings exemption.

Insurance is recommended and some craft fairs will insist on it. I used to use Manor Insurance or Ian Wallace (switched depending on which was cheaper for me)

If selling as toys there's other regulations but I have no idea what they are, sorry.

Oh and for selling online, you need to comply with the Distance Selling Regulations.

Was just curious more than anything i am nowhere near the level needed to sell. Had been doing some reading up and wondering what the legalities are. Thanks for your help :)

I've heard there are EU regulations about selling toys and that some people get round this by catergorising things as collectables / gifts for adults... but I don't know any details, sorry!

Talk to your local trading standards if you want to sell toys. You need ALL the materials you use to meet the applicable safety standards, and you do this by going through the CE testing process. For each variation of an item you need to produce a technical file which is available for customers/inspectors to look at. This covers things like how flame retardant your materials are, and other stuff.

Once you have your technical file ready, you can self certify as safe to EU standards, shown by using the CE mark on your labels. There are rules about ho you have to display the info as well, either by a sticky label or on packaging or a label sewn to the item itself.

There are a couple of FB groups that work as co-ops getting materials etc CE tested and make the certificates available to you for about £5 each, which is much cheaper than going through the process personally (it costs about £100 to test a material for flame retardation IIRC).

Trading standards should be able to advise on exactly what products need the safety testing though, not all do. New rules (I think) say that even collectibles etc now have to be tested so the statement that they're not toys and are for over 14s only doesn't work.