How to comply with E-commerce Regulations |
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| Introduction |
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| The E-Commerce Regulations (The Regulations) govern the provision of ‘information society services’. These are any services: |
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- Normally provided on request for payment;
- At a distance;
- By means of electronic equipment.
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| This includes, for example, any marketing or selling of services to consumers and businesses on the Internet, or services such as automatic score updates of football results sent to a mobile phone. This article highlights the most important aspects relevant to businesses and provides guidance on how best to comply. |
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| We provide six articles on distance selling. The others are: |
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- The Distance Selling Regulations Explains the Regulations in detail and how to comply;
- Distance Selling: an overviewExplains the most important laws and best practice for distance selling;
- Distance selling: financial servicesDifferent rules apply to selling financial services from a distance. Those rules are explained in detail here;
- Distance selling: refundsExplains the rules for refunds under Regulation 14 of the Distance Selling Regulations;
- The Distance Selling Regulations Explains how to comply with the Distance Selling Regulations.
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| General information to be provided by a person providing this service: |
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| If you are providing this service, you must supply certain information about your business and the prices you charge when you advertise or sell. Some of the information overlaps that which you must supply under the Distance Selling Regulations. We therefore advise you read our other articles on distance selling in addition to this one. The information you must provide includes: |
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- The name of your business;
- The postal address at which your business is established (or your home address if trading from home);
- Your contact details, including an email address, to enable rapid, direct and effective communication with you;
- Details of any publicly accessible trade or similar register with which you are registered, including the name of the register and your registration number or other means of identification in the register;
- If your service is subject to an authorisation scheme, details of the relevant supervisory authority;
- If you are a member of a regulated profession, details of any professional body with which you are registered, details of any professional titles you hold,
- details of the European Union member states in which the titles have been granted and a reference to the professional rules and how they can be accessed;
Your VAT registration number if you are subject to VAT; and
- Where you refer to prices, a clear and unambiguous indication of those prices and whether the prices include taxes and delivery costs (note, the DSRs also require you to quote prices inclusive of all taxes if the sale is covered by the DSRs).
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| Commercial communications |
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| Regulation 7 requires you to set out certain conditions if you promote the goods, services or image of a company, organisation or person who is carrying out a commercial, industrial or craft activity or regulated profession. It does not include independent reviews that have not been paid for, or communications that only give direct access to the activity of the trader such as a domain name or web address. |
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| Any commercial communication that you send or require someone else to send electronically on your behalf must: |
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- Be clearly identifiable as a commercial communication;
- Clearly identify you as the person making the communication;
- Clearly identify any promotional offer (including any discount, premium or gift) and ensure that any conditions that must be met to qualify for it are easily accessible, and presented clearly and unambiguously; and
- Clearly identify any promotional competition or game and ensure that any conditions for participation are easily accessible and presented clearly and unambiguously.
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| Information to be provided where contracts are formed by electronic means: |
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| Regulation 9 states that where contracts are concluded by electronic means (other than by exchange of emails), you must provide the following information to consumers in a clear, comprehensible and unambiguous manner before an order is placed. It goes without saying, the sooner the better. You must provide: |
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- The different technical steps to follow to conclude the contract;
- Whether or not the contract will be kept by you and whether the concluded contract will be accessible by you;
- The technical means to enable consumers to identify and correct input errors prior to placing the order;
- The languages offered for conclusion of the contract; and
- Any relevant codes of conduct to which you subscribe and information about how they may be consulted electronically.
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| You must make this information available in a way that allows the consumer to store and reproduce it. A good way to do this would be to refer to your website where the consumer can download and print off this information. |
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| Placing the order: |
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| Consumers, who place orders through a website or by email, need certainty about the terms of their order: |
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- Consumers must receive acknowledgement of the receipt of theorder electronically without delay; and
- You must provide consumers with effective and accessible technical means allowing them to identify and correct input errors before their order is placed.
- This simply means providing, for example, a confirmation page before they ‘confirm’ their order.
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