GPSR Compliance

[bojangled]

This is as clear as mud to me. Been to the gov. advice website and various others.
How does a 1972 poster fit in to this process?

It's not an exempt category. 

Advise buyers this item is for viewing only ? 

My initial reaction, sadly, to to switch EU and NI off. 
Jo

[555njp]

Thank you for taking time to respond, that's broadly what I thought, but you've given me some more clarity.
I see that the leaflet also suggests non-compliant websites will be blocked and non-compliant businesses could face significant fines/penalties as a deterrent!

The whole thing sounds like a lot of effort/risk for very little if any reward to me and has made up my mind to just remove EU & NI from our shipping desinations from November!

Thanks again.

[ojewellery]

I hope theres something in the master database idea mentioned by technthread. 

I wonder if the eBay catalogue will have the facility for saving all the safety, instructions and compliance information against the EAN.  Save each seller reinventing the wheel.

It wouldn't help everyone, but it could evolve over time to ease things for onsellers. It wouldn't help me with my own manufacture items and need for an Economic Operator, that thanks to @4_bathrooms I shall always think of as a whipping boy!

[bzmotman]

Thanks for your efforts in the Community Chat

My initial reaction was that the answers particularly about still being able to list without GPSR details seemed helpful. However I now realise that whilst confirming the item could be listed there was no confirmation that it would still be visible to EU buyers.

As far as I know GPSR has still not been mentioned to private sellers. So are Ebay really saying that private sales plus business who dont bother with GPSR details will still have the same visibility as now? If so then it means all the policing of GPSR is going to take place at EU Customs via CN/HSS codes. That surely cant be the intention due to the volumes involved.

My feeling is that Germany & the LUCID rules is more likely the way forward ie no LUCID number no visibility, so no GPSR details no EU visibility. If right then sellers of an exempt item need to have an option to mark it as exempt. Being told there are categories for antiques, boxes for age wont cut it. for obvious reasons.

Perhaps one of anita@ebay marco@ebay dave@ebay could provide some confirmation or otherwise of whether items without GPSR details will be visible to EU buyers post GPSR. If not visible how do sellers of genuine exempt items ensure they will be visible.

[4_bathrooms]

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@bzmotman wrote:

As far as I know GPSR has still not been mentioned to private sellers. So are Ebay really saying that private sales plus business who dont bother with GPSR details will still have the same visibility as now? If so then it means all the policing of GPSR is going to take place at EU Customs via CN/HSS codes. That surely cant be the intention due to the volumes involved.

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There isn't a chance this will solely be policed at the EU's border. The regulations make many references to "online marketplaces" and their responsibilities and obligations under the regulations including the use of a dedicated "Safety Gate Portal".

The new item specifics under the new "item disclosures" section of the listing template suggests items missing this information will not be shown to buyers with a delivery address and/or who are registered in the EU/EEA/NI. It would be interesting to know if private sellers have this section and if they do what options appear in it.   

[555njp]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

The new item specifics under the new "item disclosures" section of the listing template suggests items missing this information will not be shown to buyers with a delivery address and/or who are registered in the EU/EEA/NI. It would be interesting to know if private sellers have this section and if they do what options appear in it.   

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On my private account, currently the item disclosures line does not appear on the template.

On my business account, It does but appears to be optional at the moment as it asks me to provide more details about my items safety/quality IF I post to buyers in the EU/UK (the later presumably NI). Required info is name, address, phone number and email.

The second data box asks for an EU responsible contact, name, address, phone number and email but this box is marked "Optional".

[555njp]

Just read through the chat and the apparent lack of knowledge from eBay seems shocking to me!

Do they realise that if found to be allowing sales (as the marketing platform) of non-compliant items into the EU, that according to the directive they can be fined, banned from selling in that market (shut down) or both?

I appreciate a level of desperation to retain international sellers, especially with all the rule changes looming, but the EU seem pretty serious about riding the market of anything that does not comply and will apply serious deterrents to stop it happening.

EBay saying it will permit sellers to list potentially non-compliant items could be enough to see them banned from operating in the market?

[moldosgifts]

If the offer is in the uk only but a eu member purchases it how does that apply to the rule.

Its not offered but you have inernational shipping on offer. but the goods where not placed on their local site.

Hope all that makes sense it does to me

Just wonder if an interpriation covers that.

[bzmotman]

Somewhere in the document that moonspender posted this link to https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32023R0988 it says one of the criteria looked at as to whether GPSR applies is something like "locations that the item to which is offered".

My assumption therefore is if you list on UK but offer postage to the EU then GPSR will apply & I strongly suspect you wont get any visibility to buyers logging into local sites unless GPSR is complied with. How it will work if say a German logs into UK who knows. Also no idea what will apply to Norway & Switzerland.

I did ask the Ebay reps for clarification on visibility yesterday but no response so far.

[ojewellery]

I think they're saying that the person exporting (by having postage option to EU) is liable for it meeting their domestic EU legislation.  The posturing is big fines if you don't - but I'm really not sure about jurisdiction.

What I can't get my head around is if I buy something from China/ India or even USA, there's no way the seller (or their government) would ever accept liability for it to have to comply with all our domestic legislation.

Why then if someone in the EU buys from a non EU seller, that has goods not physically within the EU, are we seeking to follow other nations rules?  Is it simply, we are a nation of rule followers, with a history of having a domestic moral compass?  EU clout should have sufficiently diminished with Brexit.  Excess pointless rule following was one of the elements that was on the reasons to leave side of the scales.

For the marketplaces however, I can see why they'd need to put measures in place.  They have a physical EU presence and are effectively making items available for sale within the EU - their liability is a whole different issue.  I wonder if Amazon have decided to manage the boarder issue with software and restrict visibility to NI that way.

Short of trying to control the internet I can't see how the EU can really enforce this (outside of leaning on marketplaces) without major changes to the customs/ boarder control system for excessive amounts of paperwork/ digital trail for all goods crossing any EU boarder.

[555njp]

I think it's in chapter 1/ part 21:

"In the case of a product offered for sale online or through other means of distance sales, the product should be considered to have been made available on the market if the offer for sale is targeted at consumers in the Union. In line with the applicable Union rules on private international law, a case-by-case analysis should be carried out in order to establish whether an offer is targeted at consumers in the Union. An offer for sale should be considered to be targeted at consumers in the Union if the relevant economic operator directs, by any means, its activities to a Member State. For the case-by-case analyses, relevant factors, such as the geographical areas to which dispatch is possible, the languages available, used for the offer or for ordering, means of payment, the use of currency of the Member State or a domain name registered in one of the Member States should be taken into consideration. In the case of online sales, the mere fact that the economic operators’ or the providers of online marketplaces’ interface is accessible in the Member State in which the consumer is established or domiciled is insufficient."

Which suggests to me that just the UK eBay site being accessible to a member state does not require conformity unless dispatch to a member state is offered/feasible (I.e. a consumer in the EEA could purchase from the UK site and have the product shipped to them).

[fatbobfan]

My understading (4bathrooms knowledge) Switzerland is the only exemption, the rest Norway, Iceland etc are part of the European Economic Agreement so will fall under the GPSR

We removed GPSR, EEA+NI countries and had a French enquiry within three days, it may/may not have been visible but the buyer still found it, dont think it was a watcher, that was in the last 14 days. What is Ebays actual plan????? who knows

EEA and especially NI will still look at the UK marketplace, dont think they can hide the inventory not being sold  into EEA+NI, buyers will find it as its still an open and legit revenue source for Ebay

They may be EEA buyers but want to buy .co.uk to gift to a UK address, reside or holiday here, family here, study here. I probably get a dozen orders a year that pop up as an international sale that ship UK address or a freight forwarding address presuming its because they are using other not .co.uk accounts.

Be surprised if there is reduced visibility to sellers who are not GPSR compliant but if Ebay gets back to you please post

[4_bathrooms]

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@ojewellery wrote:

I think they're saying that the person exporting (by having postage option to EU) is liable for it meeting their domestic EU legislation.  The posturing is big fines if you don't - but I'm really not sure about jurisdiction.

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This is why the legislation holds online marketplaces responsible for policing their seller's sales of goods into and between EEA member states (and Northern Ireland).

A seller can choose to offer shipping to the EEA/NI either by offering their own international shipping option or by using eBay's GSP. However, if they do eBay will insist on the GPSR compliance information if it is a product that requires it as the GPSRs hold eBay liable for any non-compliant products that enter the EEA/NI.

[fatbobfan]

 'advocatus diaboli'.

If a seller is not registered as a business seller? No liability for the market place?

'Private Sellers' would be exempt?

[4_bathrooms]

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@fatbobfan wrote:

 'advocatus diaboli'.

If a seller is not registered as a business seller? No liability for the market place?

'Private Sellers' would be exempt?

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Within the regulations there are many mentions of "traders" and "economic operators" - i.e. businesses. The people who drew up the regulations are very unlikely to have been aware about the issue of business sellers masquerading as private sellers which is almost universally an eBay UK problem.

If you read eBay's GPSR information page it states:

"Effective from 13 December 2024, the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) aims to ensure the sale of safe products to buyers in the European Union (EU) and Northern Ireland (NI). This regulation applies to both new and second-hand products sold in these markets, and it introduces specific requirements for businesses regarding product safety information...

...To comply with the GPSR, all business sellers listing items for sale in the EU and NI must include the following information:"

So it seems private sellers might well be exempt. If so, I do wonder how long it will be before some "non-compliant" products end up being sold by a "private seller" to a buyer in the EEA/NI and eBay ends up being hauled over the EU Commission's coals.  

[fatbobfan]

A very grey area for both all parties.....

Does seem to be a bonus for 'Private Sellers' some sellers meeting GPSR is not possible (my self included) and it leaves less competition for the 'Private Seller'

Spent today repricing, always highlights 'Private Sellers' issue, another good one today, selling history of 9K, Feedback of 4k, Inventory level of 4.3k 

Wonder what the EU would make of the market places policing of 'Private and Business' if this was to land on a desk as a private sale?

[ashley*and*ollie]

So I am a bit confused!

Selling second hand clothes - I just added in manufacturer details on one item.  They don't seem to show on the live listing even though I've added them just now.

My item specifics include Brand.  This is surely most of the time the manufacturer  - or if not the actual manufacturer the only company detailed on the label.  So surely eBay could have some kind of link that pulls up the details of the company if you include brand?

And if that's not possible could it not store what you've entered?  I've just done a sell similar and on the next product I'm expected to add from scratch even though the manufacturer details would be the same

And finally just to check that I had entered manufacturer details I went back to 'edit' my listing, only to find it was now impossible to edit those manufacturer details I'd entered - I could turn them off and start again, but not edit the entry.

So - while I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing.  I thought just adding as I went along might be the best bet.... but even that's not thought out in a way to make it easy for sellers.

[chimprigsltd]

How will GPSR affect Chinese sellers selling into EU?  I guess they could easily nominate an EU person.  Not sure how they will address the other requirements, but they will, so it will unlikely stop one penny of their business into the EU.  All it appears to be doing is stopping small sellers with no budget to meet the requirements.

Shame.

This will affect Ebays revenues ... hopefully, then they may act.

[stampsnallsorts]

I have the dept of Trade and Industry looking into this. I had an brief answer 4 days ago saying my enquiry was being passed to a specialist dept as they could not answer straight away. This may take between 10 to 20 days to get answer. This proves there is some kind of utter confusion here if they cannot even find an answer. 

The problem is with collectibles under 100 years old to be exempt they must be of significant artist value. Yet that wording is very ambigus as there is no clarification as to its true meaning. This even appears in the EU regulations.

When I get more info I will post it here.

[4_bathrooms]

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@chimprigsltd wrote:

How will GPSR affect Chinese sellers selling into EU? 

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It will affect them in exactly the same way as it affects sellers from Great Britain, USA, Australia, India or any other non-EEA member country selling into the EU.

[ojewellery]

I agree with the vast majority of things you post but quite strongly disagree on this one.  The business conduct of Chinese companies is not consistent with those of many other countries. 

This assessment/ assumption is based on how they've handled our requirements for UK VAT registration and the fact that tens of thousands have bought misery to UK residents by selecting UK address' for registration as these aren't checked at point of registration, they're used when it comes to unpaid bills and prosecution.

I would never dream of using a random EU name/ address to use as a workaround to con the eBay/ marketplace systems.  That's exactly what many, many Chinese sellers have a record of doing.

I wouldn't do it because of my own moral compass - but that isn't the limit of reasons why.  I know that eBay would ban me (if/ when caught), due to our domestic personal and business registration systems I couldn't just create another account and continue trading, the UK government wouldn't prevent my prosecution should greater legal implications surround my misrepresentation of status (lack of economic operator) either.

Rant over - intended to be aimed at the discrepancy of trading conditions and traceable responsibility which is exactly what the legislation is meant to be dealing with.