Which? has identified 150 potentially lethal infant products for sale to UK parents across seven online marketplaces, according to an investigation reported by the Guardian. The consumer body's researchers found the listings on Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, OnBuy and TikTok Shop, spanning categories that have already been subject to formal safety alerts from the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS).

Almost a quarter of the 150 items were listed on Amazon alone. The research deliberately targeted product types the OPSS had already flagged, rather than surveying the marketplaces at large — meaning the count reflects known-hazard categories still circulating, not a general audit of infant goods sold online.

Three product types account for most of the findings. Which? located 54 self-feeding devices — bottle holders designed to free a parent's hands during feeding — across Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, OnBuy and TikTok Shop, despite an OPSS alert issued in 2022 warning that such devices carry a risk of serious injury or death. Which?'s own 2022 alert had described the choking and pneumonia risks in detail, and a BleuRibbon Baby Shop self-feeding pillow was separately recalled over choking and aspiration dangers, per Which?'s product recalls roundup. Of the 150 items, 21 were pillow-style bottle-holders designed to fasten around a baby's neck.

Sleep-related products made up the second cluster. Researchers found 37 sleep pillows marketed for infants under 12 months across AliExpress, Amazon, Etsy, OnBuy and TikTok Shop. The OPSS had warned in December 2025 that such pillows pose risks of suffocation and overheating and have been linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Separately, Which? found 59 baby sleeping bags across Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, eBay and Etsy judged to carry a serious suffocation risk because they include hoods, lack armholes, or both — a hazard the organisation had already catalogued in a January 2024 warning covering six risky product categories. Etsy accounted for 38 of those 59 sleeping bags, the largest single-platform concentration in that category.

One example cited in the investigation: a swaddle blanket dispatched by Amazon, marketed for babies up to six months old, featured a hood with teddy ears but no armholes, and its listing described it as usable as a sleeping sack. Which? said it had reported the same product, in a different colour, to Amazon earlier in 2026 — indicating the listing, or a close variant of it, persisted on the platform after being flagged once already.

Sue Davies, Which?'s head of consumer protection policy, is quoted in the Guardian's report calling on the government to act. Which? is urging ministers to invoke powers under the Product Regulation and Metrology Act to make online marketplaces legally responsible for third-party products sold on their platforms — a shift that would move liability from individual third-party sellers, who are often based overseas and difficult to pursue, onto the platforms hosting them.

The marketplaces named responded individually. Alibaba.com said it had "swiftly removed the non-compliant products" and would continue to "educate sellers." AliExpress said it had removed the flagged listings and would make "necessary enhancements to our existing control measures." An Etsy spokesperson said safety was "paramount" and that the platform had "removed all the flagged policy-violating listings." None of the responses cited in the Guardian's report addressed why products subject to years-old OPSS alerts remained listed prior to Which?'s intervention.

This is not Which?'s first such finding. In November 2025, the organisation published its own investigation under the headline "Hundreds of potentially deadly items found on online marketplaces" — a framing that suggests the scale of listings identified then was, by Which?'s own account, larger than the 150 figure now being reported by the Guardian. Read alongside that earlier work, the current tally indicates recurring gaps in enforcement against known-hazard categories rather than a single new discovery.

The regulatory question at the center of this centers on where liability sits. Under UK product safety law as it currently stands, online marketplaces largely function as intermediaries rather than sellers of record for third-party listings, which limits direct enforcement action against the platforms themselves even when they have prior notice of a hazard. The Product Regulation and Metrology Act gives ministers scope to redefine that relationship, but doing so would require secondary legislation and, likely, negotiation with platforms operating across multiple jurisdictions with different compliance regimes. Whether government moves on Which?'s request — and on what timetable — will determine whether repeat discoveries of the same recalled or alerted products become less frequent, or simply better documented.