The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) website, www.cpsc.gov, is the best tool we have to keep our stores free of recalled merchandise. Check the "Recalls" section of the site for listings. You can search by product or by company and it is very easy to use. I suggest you also subscribe to CPSC’s e-mail subscription list to automatically receive all recall notices. At Mommy and Me, Inc. we have done a search of recalls for all major manufacturers of children’s products such as Graco, Evenflo, Century and Cosco. We have printed these and posted them in our receiving area for easy reference. We also print each recall summary and use plastic protector sheets to file them by manufacturer in our "recall book for baby equipment." We have an additional book for toys and one for clothing.

For any store reselling car seats, I strongly urge you to check out the website for Safety Belt USA at www.carseat.org. They have recall information for all car seats and their list is very detailed and easy to use. Contact them to receive information about their automatic update service to have a new list sent to you each time a recalled car seat is added. They can provide you with a packet of information which includes a car seat history form that we have customized for our store. We fill out the top part, recording any recalls that need to be taken care of and note if the instructions were included. It is not wise to sell a car seat without instructions for proper use. You can contact the manufacturer for free replacement of instructions. It is VERY important to ask if a car seat has ever been in an auto collision. Any seat that was in even the mildest fender bender may have broken internal parts and is no longer safe and should NOT be accepted!

Just recently I have started contacting manufacturers after a large recall and have asked them to send me a dozen or so of the recall repair kits to have on hand. This saves us time and space. For instance Graco will provide new safety restraints for the 7 million infant swings recalled on 4/13/2000. There have been 6 deaths relating to this recall, 5 of which involved second-hand swings. When we come across a recalled swing we can repair it right away so it is safe and ready to sell. Cosco had a recall of infant cribs on 7/9/97 with the remedy of a warning sticker for placement on the mattress platform to prevent it from being used as a side rail. I contacted Cosco and they sent me these warning stickers so we could correct the problem with this crib immediately. Keep in mind manufacturers are not always willing to send you parts without you actually having a recalled product in stock, but with enough insisting they may do it.