UK laws for ecommerce sites simplified
Under UK law, you are required to include an enormous amount of information on your ecommerce store. The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 came into force on 21st August 2002 and they specify information that must be included on a website, but these are not the only regulations you must adhere to. You must also follow the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
After having a number of customers ask about this information, I decided that it was time for a post to simplify the information that you need to include on your site, to meet both these regulations and other legislation.
Include details about your company
You will need to include all relevant details about your company on your site. You will probably find that your site already contains a good deal of this information, for example on an 'about us' or 'contact us' page.
- Company Information. You need to include your company name, a UK geographic address and an e-mail address. You should also include your VAT number if you have one. You can include this on an 'about us' or 'contact us' page, but for some information, such as company name, address and telephone, it can pay to include it on every page, for example in the footer.
- Details of any registration scheme to which you belong and the means of identification in that register, for example your Companies House company registration number and registered office address if you are a limited company.
- Details of professional bodies you are registered with, your professional title and applicable rules, for example chartered surveyor and RICS.
- Details of any Code of Practice to which you subscribe, such as ISIS Accreditation. These can be good schemes to sign up to as they give customers confidence when shopping on your site. Adding this to your site can be as simple as an image of the scheme's logo, linking through to the accreditation.
Provide detailed information about your products and pricing
Information about your products is the easiest section for most ecommerce site owners to meet. Most ecommerce sites will already be including most of this information.
- A description of the goods or services being sold. A good product description is not only part of the regulations, but can also help improve your search engine rankings and is your chance to increase your website conversion rate and sell your products.
- Pricing information, fully inclusive of any delivery charges, taxes, excise duty, etc. If you sell to the trade and display your prices without VAT, you must make that clear. If you ship to a country where the customer will have to pay an import duty, then you must make that clear too.
- Information about how long the offer or price applies. If your products are on special offer, you must state how long the offer will last. You can use this to drive your sales, for example 'only on special offer for another three days'.
- Information about the availability of the products. You must let your customers know whether goods are in stock or not. You can use stock messages to your advantage. A simple message such as 'out of stock - coming in 3 days' marks you out as both competent and honest and most people will be prepared to wait.
- Delivery and dispatch details of the products. Again, including full information about your deliveries and the time they will take increases customer confidence. The best option is to have a specific 'delivery information' page, with details of couriers used, pricing, how they are charged (for example by weight or order value) and countries and regions that you ship to.
- Information about substitutes in the event that goods or services are not available. This is more aimed at the food retailers such as Tesco, who if a product is out of stock, will deliver you something different in its place. But it's a good idea to include alternatives on your site anyway.
Outline and protect the ordering process
As with the goods information, most ecommerce sites will already include most of the ordering process information.
- The technical means for identifying and correcting customer input errors prior to the placing of the order. You don't want incorrect information in your orders, so you should already be checking and dealing with incorrect information, such as validating email addresses, telephone numbers and postcodes.
- Details of stages involved in the ordering process, including any costs for distance communication if the cost is at anything other than a standard rate. Under Schedule 1 of the Distance Selling Regulations 2000, distance communication includes:
- Unaddressed printed matter.
- Addressed printed matter.
- Letter.
- Press advertising with order form.
- Catalogue.
- Telephone with human intervention.
- Telephone without human intervention (automatic calling machine, audiotext).
- Radio.
- Videophone (telephone with screen).
- Videotext (microcomputer and television screen) with keyboard or touch screen.
- Electronic mail.
- Facsimile machine (fax).
- Television (teleshopping).
- The different technical steps to follow to conclude a contract, so that consumers are made aware of what the process will involve and the point at which they will commit themselves. For example, if a customer is buying a mug printed with their own logo, they must go through the checkout, upload the logo, receive a proof and then approve it. You must make it clear at what point they can cancel.
What legal information must you provide?
You must include a large amount of legal information, but there is a wealth of knowledge on the Internet for these. Have a look at other sites' information, or contact your local trading standards office for more information or guidance. Although this list looks daunting, some of the information can be combined, for example including your cookie policy or data protection statement as part of your privacy policy.
- Full terms and conditions that are readily accessible, fair and meaningful. Your terms and conditions should set out the guidelines for your customers' website usage.
- Clear complaints procedure and policy on returning goods, including cancellation rights. Writing a good returns policy can increase sales by increasing customer confidence, but you must by law have at least a seven day returns policy.
- A statement indicating that, when buying goods and services on the Internet, the consumer is entering a legally binding contract.
- A privacy policy, information about security issues and a data protection statement. This should outline what data you collect from customers, what you do with the data and how you protect it. It should also include how a customer can contact you for a copy of the data that you hold.
- A cookie (unique identifier) policy. Cookies are small pieces of information that are sent from a website to the cookie file of a user's browser. You must outline what cookies your ecommerce store will send and what you use them for. The supplier of your shopping cart system should be able to supply you with this information.
- If you send out customer newsletters, you must include an opt-in box. Regular newsletters with offers and new product information can be a very powerful tool in driving sales, but you can only send the emails out to those customers that have agreed to receive them.
In addition, you should include a statement that the UK law is the applicable law, perhaps as part of your terms and conditions. Under the Ecommerce Regulations, businesses have the freedom to choose the applicable law. However, a UK-based business, even if their only business is trading via the Internet outside the UK, still has to keep to UK requirements.
If in doubt...
If in doubt, always contact your local trading standards office. They are there to help you meet with legislation and will be able to advise you whether what you are doing is right. It is also advisable to ask your solicitor to proof read your legal copy.
Acknowledgements
This post was inspired by and some of the information taken from a Trading Standards Institute leaflet, published 2010.