These days with nearly every purchase you make, the new item or gadget comes with a product registration card. Many people view these registration cards as yet another intrusive way for companies to get a consumers contact information. Most people think, if they register the product – they will be bombarded with unsolicited offers clogging up their inbox, mailbox and voicemail. But, the reality is registering your products is a good safety measure.
Registering your new product and providing your contact information, allows companies to easily notify you in a timely manner of any safety issues, defects, or recalls. This is especially important when purchasing infant and toddler items, such as car seats, cribs and other baby gear. Thanks to the “Danny Keysar Child Product Safety Notification Act,” today’s registration cards for infant and toddler products are not to be used for marketing. The information requested, including the brand and model of the product and your e-mail address, must only be used to notify you in the event of a recall.
With 24-hour news cycles and the recent surge in automotive recalls, consumers are experiencing recall fatigue. People simply tune out what could be vital safety information. Having consumers register products enhances the effectiveness of recalls because a consumer is more likely to respond to a direct notification verses a news story that is likely to be ignored.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has teamed up with several other organizations (Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association, Kids in Danger and Consumer Federation of America) to encourage consumers to fill out product registration cards with a campaign called “It’s Not Hard! Fill Out the Card.”
