ched mandatory standards. Customers reported burns between August 2017 and December 2024, some required hospitalisation and skin grafts. Finally, it added a fabric-related burn warning in December 2024. Kmart says it has strengthened its safety processes and maintains the nail glue warnings were appropriate to prevent misuse. “We regret any injury associated with these products and apologise to anyone affected,” a spokesperson said. Still, the allegations raise the question of how retailers should respond when a customer reports an injury associated with a product they sell.   Dean Salakas has faced that question himself when a customer complained that a musical candle had exploded. Salakas, then running his family business, The Party People, contacted the supplier and immediately withdrew the stock. Weeks later, the supplier reported other incidents overseas, luckily, the candles remained off sale until they were eventually recalled. “As soon as there’s a single complaint, I’d be investigating immediately with the supplier,” Salakas told Inside Retail. He said this while the cause was still being established, giving the investigation time to move the stock safely out of customers’ reach.  Before the evidentiary burden could return to Salaka’s shelf, the supplier had some explaining to do, and as for Kmart, Salakas explained he’d expect written accounts of investigations, actions and findings before feeling confident enough to resume sales. His own experience also recommends pursuing the particular circumstances of an injury. For example, if a customer describes glue reacting with clothing, ask for the fabric and examine what happened.“You’d want some process to assume the customer’s correct and keep drilling down on where the problem occurs,” he said.  A refund with unfinished business Retail Customer Advisory founder Trent Rigby dissected how safety concerns are often treated as an ordinary refund or complaint. “A customer returns something in-store to the returns desk or online,” he explains. “The team member picks ‘faulty’ from a drop-down. The customer then gets a refund, and the ticket closes. So essentially the system records the returns transaction but not the actual customer injury. “This is great for the retailer’s net promotion score, but it’s bad for overall future safety. The ACCC has long said the actual reports it gets are the tip of the iceberg.” The remedy, it seems, is a compulsory question about whether anyone was hurt, asked at every returns desk and contact centre. Under ACCC guidance, suppliers must report within two days of becoming aware that a product caused, or may have caused, a death, serious injury or serious illness. Thermomix is a cautionary tale of what happens when a company lets that clock run – and the ACCC takes action. In 2018, the company was ordered by the Federal Court to pay more than AU$4.6 million in penalties for consumer law breaches, including continuing to sell its TM31 appliance despite knowing its lid could lift and release hot food or liquid. It also failed to report serious injuries on time on 14 occasions. One report arrived three years overdue, stretching a two-day obligation into a far-reaching administrative interlude.  Ask the awkward follow-up Rigby recommends counting complaints by product across stores, contact centres, reviews and social media. Three accounts entering through three channels should remain visible as three accounts concerning the same item. Responsibility for the resulting decision deserves as much attention. “The person who’s deciding whether a product stays on the shelf shouldn’t be the one whose margin / KPI’s depends on it,” he said. Even so, withdrawing stock has an immediate, legible cost, but preventing the next injury produces an achievement far more significant.  To evade another chemical burn or candle explosion, retailers need to give their staff the confidence to pull a product from the shelf while the business gets its answers. As Rigby put it “One serious injury, particularly with a child, should be enough.” Further reading: Australian regulator finds Kmart breached customer privacy over FRT tech