EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Shipping, Non Compliant Electrical Appliances
Serious questions are being asked after it was revealed that Amazon is allowing Marketplace participants to ship electrical appliances to Australia that don’t comply with local safety standards because they are the wrong voltage, the products are also devoid of a local 10 year warranty.
This was exposed when ChannelNews sourced the pricing for a KitchenAid Pro Line Blender that has just gone on sale in australia for $1,199.
What we have revealed is that the lure of cheap prices, could end up costing Australians who shop on the Amazon web site dearly.
A classic example is the Companies new, Pro Line Blender, the same blender is selling for US$499 on Amazon.com and Amazon Prime or A$656 when conversion to the Australian dollar.
This a price which KitchenAid executives in Australia admit could temp some Australians to buy direct from the Amazon US web site which is offering to ship KitchenAid products to Australia within days of them being ordered from a US Marketplace operator liosted on the Amazon website.
Via Amazon the total cost of the Pro Line Blender with shipping to Australia added is $785.41.
The only problem is that KitchenAid will not offer the same 10 warranty, on the product as the Australian sourced model.
The Amazon advertised device is $110 volts Vs 240 volts for the Australian model, according to experts this could lead to the device “exploding”.
On the Amazon web site on Friday two Amazon Marketplace participants Concept Kitchen and Kitchen Kapers were offering to ship the 110 volts Amazon Kitchen Aid Pro Line Blender to Australia arriving by November 30th.
This was then changed to December 8, 2018 when we went to the shopping cart.
“We have raised this issue with Amazon who are not purchasing the device directly from us” said KitchenAid executives.
“The issue we have is that the US device is not suitable for the Australian market, despite this they are allowing their Market Place Merchants to ship goods that may be unsafe and this is a problem” added.
According to electrical experts if the voltage is too high it draws too much current and burns out, if the voltage is too low it draws too little current and/or does not perform to its rating. The mathematical reference is Ohm’s Law and the Power Triangle.
Theysaid that If you plug an 110V appliance in 220V outlet you have to hope that there is some protection device that disconnects the power to the appliance.
If the Amazon shipped goods is some kind of heating device, (toaster, incandescent light, lamp, bulb, space heater) it will develop close to four times the designed heat, and probably burn out in minutes, or seconds. This they claim could lead to a house burning down.
If it is an AC drive, it most likely will burn out very quickly. If it is a universal drive, (or DC), it may spin up to twice its intended speed, and wear out quickly.
The experts also claim that if Amazon in shipping and supplying the device it could be contravene local regulations, because in most countries, electrical sockets are designed to accept only certain plugs, in order that you do not mismatch appliance voltage and outlet voltage.
We have attempted to call Amazon PR re this issue, but they have not returned our calls.
KitchenAid Australia said that several of the Companies products which don’t comply with Australian standards are currently listed on the Amazon web site.
Kay Oswald the General Manager of KitchenAid Australia said “These concerns have existed as long as e-commerce has been around and is not Amazon-specific. It is about educating consumers that electrical appliances should not be brought in from overseas as they are simply not made for this market”.
He added “We want our customers to have a great experience when they purchase one of our products. If a small appliance is bought overseas, no matter where they purchase it from, the last thing we want is for them to find out that it may not work as expected due to the product being designed for other markets. When you purchase a product here in Australia it is designed for our market, you are covered by a local warranty and deal with a locally-based customer service team.”