Did you miss me this last Tuesday? This was one of those weeks where I don't think I sat down once. My husband's birthday was Friday, Father's Day was Sunday, and somehow in the middle of all that I blinked and now one of my kids turns twelve on Thursday. Twelve. I don't really know how that happened. I have approximately zero slow mornings to report.

And in the middle of all that and client work, my phone was buzzing with Facebook notifications. I had a small flood of new member requests to the Facebook group. Almost every one of them mentioned the same thing: CPSC eFiling.

I've talked about this with people one-on-one more times than I can count over the last few months, but I realized I have never actually written it out anywhere people could find it later. That's on me, and I'm fixing it today.

Here's the short version: starting July 8th, the CPSC is moving from importers "having your safety certificate on file in case someone asks" to "submit that certificate's data electronically, at the time your product ships, every time." It's called eFiling, and it's mandatory.

The good news? eFiling doesn't change who needs a certificate. It only changes how the certificate data gets submitted. If you've never needed a CPC or GCC before, this doesn't suddenly require one. If you've always needed one, you (or whoever handles your importing) now has a new electronic step to do at the time of entry instead of just keeping paperwork on your computer.

Where it gets genuinely confusing for handmade sellers is the word "supply." So let's clear it up really quick here:

• If you import raw materials like fabric by the yard, beads, hardware, ribbon, etc. none of that needs a certificate, and you don't even need to look at eFiling. Carry on.
• If you import blank children's tees or bodysuits to decorate and sell, that blank is already a finished children's product the moment it crosses the border. So even though this is a "supply" for you, it still requires a CPC and eFiling.
• If you import blank adult apparel, you need a GCC if flammability testing needed to be done, and if no testing needed to be done (like plain tees), you'll be able to use a disclaim code instead.
• If you're importing finished products to resell, particularly children's products, (including co-ops and buy-in groups) you absolutely need to pay attention to this new eFiling thing.

The mechanics themselves are actually pretty simple: the CPSC has a list of codes you use to indicate what's being attested to, and a separate list of exemption codes for anything that doesn't need lab testing. You won't need to upload any documents, it'll all be textual data using the same information that's already on your CPC/GCC. You'll create an account and then if you have "trade partners" (broker, manufacturer, or lab rep),you can add them to your account so they can drop their piece directly into the system for your approval.

So if you are importing, your two small things this week are to figure out if your imported items required a CPC/GCC and if they did, do you have one for each thing?

I've got a resource blog post on this with more detail [here].