CPSIA Forces Scarlet Stitch to Liquidate Children’s Line

[This is another in a series of posts by Susan Maphis covering the impact of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). For more information about the CPSIA, read Susan's previous article: The End Of Handmade and sign up for her CPSIA Alerts Mailing List ]

The CPSIA has already caused one children’s clothing company, Scarlet Stitch, to change its business model. Co-owners Crystal Carr and Jill Buie made the decision to sell their existing inventory and hope to come up with a new line for teenagers soon.

“Due to the passing of the law, we felt we had two options,” Carr explains. “Either we could cross our fingers, hope the law would be revoked or changed, and continue to sell our clothing as before. Or, take the law seriously and sell our inventory before the law took effect. We decided to sell our inventory, rather than take the chances of not being able to sell it at all. In order to sell all of our inventory, we had to throw a massive clearance sale, selling items for 50% or more off. This, of course, is not conducive to making any kind of profit and we forfeited potentially hundreds of dollars in order to clear our inventory to be compliant with the law.”

“We also plan to switch gears and are working on creating a new Junior Line, geared towards teenage girls,” she continues. “This expansion takes time and money. In the meanwhile, we will be unable to sell any of our Children’s Line unless the law is changed, meaning we will be without sales however long it takes to implement our new clothing line.”

Carr and Buie have been encouraging visitors to their website, ScarletStitch.com, to become involved by signing petitions to have the CPSIA changed. “We are hopeful that people will have enough common sense to see that lead levels in children’s clothing is not a matter of concern and therefore testing will not be required,” Carr says. “We hope to reinstate our Children’s Line as soon as we are able.”

Visit ScarletStitch.com to view the massive clearance sale of their existing inventory, where items such as the Patchwork Pinafore, shown above, are selling for $15 (regularly $35).

[ For more information about the CPSIA, read Susan's previous article: The End Of Handmade]