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

[bzmotman]

Its Ebays site and they set their own rules as to what is & is not allowed to sold on it. If they decide not to allow you to list something for whatever reason that doen't make it illegal. There is nothing in Article 51 that says an online site must allow sellers to sell articles previously sold to the EU.

It might provide protection if you decided to list such items on your own site but whether or not Ebay take that opportunity to allow sellers to list such items is entirely up to them.

[ett1954]

"Its Ebays site and they set their own rules as to what is & is not allowed to sold on it. If they decide not to allow you to list something for whatever reason that doen't make it illegal. There is nothing in Article 51 that says an online site must allow sellers to sell articles previously sold to the EU."

Whilst I agree with your statement entirely I do feel eBay need to be more forthcoming in preparing business sellers (as it is only business sellers who are impacted) for the implementation of this new regulation.  A significant proportion of my sales are to EU and EEA countries which it would appear at the moment will come to a halt on December 13th; if not before.

Now if a platform were to provide a smooth process to guide business sellers through a process to enable listings to be legally compliant it becomes a simple decision on where to place such items for sale, whichever platform that were to be.  As mentioned above only business sellers are impacted, however they are the major revenue providers now for eBay's continuation.  If another platform succeeds in providing the opportunity for continued sales into Europe this will, in effect, only accelerate the demise of this once great platform.

eBay need to step up and communicate before it is too late.  Unfortunately they seem to be pre-occupied with changing the messaging system, format of sales e-mails, and tinkering with site features that work perfectly well.

[4_bathrooms]

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@baby_buzz_direct wrote:

But you said it yourself

"...they are placed on the market at the moment an order by an end user has been placed and confirmed for a specific product already manufactured and subject of the transaction, and ready to be shipped."

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The pertinent part is where it states "specific product". You could have sold hundreds of the same item to the EU previously but you can only sell a specific product once. As per the Blue Guide only an EU-established manufacturer, importer or fulfilment service provider could have placed the product on the EU market before it was sold online:

"—   The distance sale or online offer may refer to products that have already been placed on the Union market. This is the case where the EU manufacturer or an importer has already placed them on the Union market before they were offered for sale online or through other means of distance selling.

—   Some products offered online or through other means of distance selling to end users in the Union are transferred first to fulfilment service providers located in the EU to guarantee their swift delivery to EU end users. Accordingly, products stored by such fulfilment service providers and released for free circulation are considered to have been supplied for distribution, consumption or use on the EU market and thus placed on the EU market. When an online operator uses a fulfilment service provider in this manner, by shipping the products to the fulfilment house in the EU, the products are in the distribution phase of the supply chain (61). These products are considered placed on the market at the time they are released for free circulation."

You're not an EU established manufacturer, importer nor fulfilment service provider; you're a non-EU established retailer. You therefore never placed the product on the EU market prior to the deadline regardless how many previous sales to the EU you have made.

[4_bathrooms]

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@ett1954 wrote:

We all know how eBay's CS works and I would be interested in seeing something definitive from an organisational or government body that should have some credibility, rather than just a verbal verification that cannot be challenged after the event.

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I've noticed eBay have now provided this page with further details about the GPSR and a list of authorised representatives - note some have dedicated email addresses for enquiries from eBay sellers.

Also, the Department for Business & Trade have set up a new online portal with a "UK Export Academy". It requires a free registration but there is a webinar on Monday (which can be live-streamed or watched on-demand) explaining the UK and EU's GPSR requirements.

[a45heaven]

Too little, too late - how many sellers have blocked the EU, (Sadly) NI and indeed in some cases, the rest of the world outside the UK.

This week another platform posted the required responses of GPSR and unlike ebay, how to take the appropriate actions. They never even indicated that a seperate 'Regulations Fee' would be levied, unlike ebay.

That platform will have sales available to the EU and NI for their efforts.

Sorry if there are spelling errors in this thread, that functional glitch is known to CS beyond a week.

[baby_buzz_direct]

You have the meaning of the words 'product' and 'item' exactly the wrong way around.  Just take your quote from the blue guide

"The distance sale or online offer may refer to products that have already been placed on the Union market. This is the case where the EU manufacturer or an importer has already placed them on the Union market before they were offered for sale online or through other means of distance selling"

The 'product' here is obviously the particular type of merchandise you are selling (as characterised by e.g. its SKU) not a single physical item of this product, as you can place the latter obviously not twice on the market.

[4_bathrooms]

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@baby_buzz_direct wrote:

You have the meaning of the words 'product' and 'item' exactly the wrong way around.  Just take your quote from the blue guide

"The distance sale or online offer may refer to products that have already been placed on the Union market. This is the case where the EU manufacturer or an importer has already placed them on the Union market before they were offered for sale online or through other means of distance selling"

The 'product' here is obviously the particular type of merchandise you are selling (as characterised by e.g. its SKU) not a single physical item of this product, as you can place the latter obviously not twice on the market.

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But you're not an EU manufacturer or importer...

I have had a look at your listings to see exactly what your issue might be. I looked up the brand mentioned on your very first listing and found their website in literally a few seconds. On their website it states "All '<brand>' items are manufactured to strict British and EEC standards and are designed by our in-house team in the UK". You need to contact them and request the details of their EU authorised representative - as their items are stated to meet EEC (and therefore EU) standards they should have one. You then enter the manufacturer's and their authorised representative's details in the "product manufacturer" item disclosure for all that brand's listings - you can do this in bulk. Then, rinse and repeat for all the other brands you deal with. You might also need to obtain "certificates of conformity" from each supplier too as baby clothes are subject to harmonised legislation (REACH, EN 14682, EN 14878 etc). Again, this is information they should be able to provide upon request.

[baby_buzz_direct]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

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But you're not an EU manufacturer or importer...

It does not matter who the importer is/was. The fact that the product was sold in the EU already before 13 Dec. is sufficient for the GPSR not applying to it.

I have had a look at your listings to see exactly what your issue might be. I looked up the brand mentioned on your very first listing and found their website in literally a few seconds. On their website it states "All '<brand>' items are manufactured to strict British and EEC standards and are designed by our in-house team in the UK". You need to contact them and request the details of their EU authorised representative - as their items are stated to meet EEC (and therefore EU) standards they should have one. You then enter the manufacturer's and their authorised representative's details in the "product manufacturer" item disclosure for all that brand's listings - you can do this in bulk. Then, rinse and repeat for all the other brands you deal with. You might also need to obtain "certificates of conformity" from each supplier too as baby clothes are subject to harmonised legislation (REACH, EN 14682, EN 14878 etc). Again, this is information they should be able to provide upon request.

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Where did I say we have any issues? Ebay has not asked us as yet to give GPSR information for any of our products.  I just relisted without any issues a product that was ended recently.

[l_patterson]

Thanks for the help BZ/Triple/Nutra,

I will  give that a try and see. ("until I'd removed EU and NI completely").

[ett1954]

@4_bathrooms  thanks for the link, I hadn't seen this before.  Reading through the pages and various links it would be useful if I were selling manufactured items, widgets, etc. however I am still at a loss to identify what is required for the likes of books, magazines, newspapers etc; many of which are individual items.  Most are pre-ISBN, some more than a hundred years old.

Books have never required a CE, they don't come with technical instructions or safety instructions; and as for the manufacturer's details, I presume this means the publisher in the case of printed media, most of these no longer exist or were absorbed into larger conglomerates (some more than once) over the years.  One publisher I did identify provides none of the required information for GPSR via their website.

Nevertheless, I registered with "UK Export Academy" and booked into the webinar next Monday to see whether this can shed any further light on the situation.  I'll live in hope.

Thanks again for posting the links.

[lens-sage]

"The pertinent part is where it states "specific product". You could have sold hundreds of the same item to the EU previously but you can only sell a specific product once."

I'm not so sure about that.

I would argue you can sell hundreds of examples/copies of the same specific product. 

We disagree on enterpretation of terminology.

I do not believe article 51 refers to individual examples of a certain product or that it only applies to examples that are SOLD before December.

Ebay do not seem to see it that way, either, judging by their GPSR page.

[alcas1265]

GPSR is a Joke

[the-home-warehouse]

Have a look at this video its an ebay seller he has over 60 thousand views on this vid

https://youtu.be/3arTk7HaNzE

[tjones180]

Excellent. You can feel his frustration and his concern for his workers livelyhood.

[4_bathrooms]

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@ett1954 wrote:

@4_bathrooms  thanks for the link, I hadn't seen this before.  Reading through the pages and various links it would be useful if I were selling manufactured items, widgets, etc. however I am still at a loss to identify what is required for the likes of books, magazines, newspapers etc; many of which are individual items.  Most are pre-ISBN, some more than a hundred years old.

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Anything over 100 years old is automatically exempted under Annex IX (antiques) - if there is an item specific for publication date eBay should use that to verify the item is exempt. I don't think the GPSR was ever intended to cover the likes of books, magazines, newspapers etc. but they're not specifically exempted anywhere that I can see unless they're not considered "products".

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@ett1954 wrote:

Books have never required a CE, they don't come with technical instructions or safety instructions; and as for the manufacturer's details, I presume this means the publisher in the case of printed media, most of these no longer exist or were absorbed into larger conglomerates (some more than once) over the years.  One publisher I did identify provides none of the required information for GPSR via their website.

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The General Product Safety Regulation applies to all products regardless whether they require CE marking or not. The GPSR doesn't actually cover aspects of product safety that are already covered under harmonised legislation such as CE conformity, textile labelling, REACH etc. However, such products will be required to have the manufacturer and/or the manufacturer's EU representative identified along with any applicable documents such as an EU Declaration of Conformity.

[4_bathrooms]

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@lens-sage wrote:

"The pertinent part is where it states "specific product". You could have sold hundreds of the same item to the EU previously but you can only sell a specific product once."

I'm not so sure about that.

I would argue you can sell hundreds of examples/copies of the same specific product. 

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"Making available on the market" and "placing on the market" are legal terms defined in the Blue Guide. Prior to the section that specifically deals with distance and online sales is this definition:

"For the purposes of Union harmonisation legislation, a product is placed on the market when it is made available for the first time on the Union market. This operation should be done by the manufacturer or by an importer (46). When a manufacturer or an importer supplies a product to a distributor (47) or an end-user for the first time, the operation is always labelled in legal terms as ‘placing on the market’. Any subsequent operation, for instance, from a distributor to distributor or from a distributor to an end-user is defined as making available.

As for ‘making available’, the concept of placing on the market refers to each individual product, not to a type of product, and whether it was manufactured as an individual unit or in series."

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@lens-sage wrote:

Ebay do not seem to see it that way, either, judging by their GPSR page.

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I believe eBay's interpretation is correct.

[triple512]

Interesting video, same frustrations as all of us, but I feel it completely misses the point.

This issue is not the fault of eBay. Yes, they haven't helped because they aren't understanding the regs or telling us how to comply, but at the end of the day, and the reason why most businesses like his will be forced to stop selling to EU and NI is because the GPSR rules are ridiculous and haven't been thought through.
They will apply to every online marketplace, not just eBay and to all sales within the EU as well as from countries trying to import to it.

He also got it wrong regarding selling to GB. He can still do that with non-compliant listings, just not to his home country.

I've basically got the same problem selling spares (spings, blades, motors, washers etc.), where for most I've no idea who makes them. I'm a reseller, not a manufacturer.
The UK ministers for trade have failed by not appreciating the impact of these regs. I guess we couldn't stop them since leaving the EU, but we should have had a say regarding NI?

Not surprised to see that the Chinese junk is now being shipped with fake responsible rep information on it in an attempt to keep selling, doubt it'll be long before the EU put a stop to that though.

[baby_buzz_direct]

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@ett1954 wrote:

Books have never required a CE, they don't come with technical instructions or safety instructions; and as for the manufacturer's details, I presume this means the publisher in the case of printed media, most of these no longer exist or were absorbed into larger conglomerates (some more than once) over the years.  One publisher I did identify provides none of the required information for GPSR via their website.

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You can't actually CE mark books. Only certain product categories require CE marking ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#Product_groups ) and it is illegal to put a CE mark on any other products. For the latter the GPSR regulation applies instead.

[baby_buzz_direct]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

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I've noticed eBay have now provided this page with further details about the GPSR and a list of authorised representatives - note some have dedicated email addresses for enquiries from eBay sellers.

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Just don't let these authorised GPSR representatives fool you. They won't tell you initially that, as per article 51,  you only have to register those products that were not yet on the market before Dec. 13, as, depending on their business model, they may want a product volume as high as possible. So you have to address this point from your side and have this clarified with them from the outset (all companies I contacted so far did confirm this straight away).

[cooksongold]

He also shares, though inadvertently, the reason the rules are probably being added in the first place.

He shares several products that have no labelling, no manufacturer information, nothing. Brass bowls that might come into contact with food and a dogs chew toy.

No idea what is in them, no chain of supply should there be any issues with the item. Could be anything in those brass bowls or plastic toy!