General Product Safety Regulation Regulations December 2024

[knit-in-styles]

I am part of the Ebay Expression where you participate in surveys. Today I received a survey re the new regulations which are coming in later this year if you sell to the EU. The survey was all about the wording of the email that will go out to sellers.

I have to admit, I was not aware of this and have no idea of which products this will affect but is a major change as the suggested email mentioned having to add the product manufactures name, address and contact details, add product safety and compliance information, product manuals on all listings. There is a link to to eBay EU if you are not aware where you can read some of the info.

https://www.ebaymainstreet.com/eupublicpolicy/issues/product-safety

[andrehartford]

How would that help? You would still have to supply exactly the same information 

[biz.point-0]

will it be including UK or just EU i am bit confused

[the_book_seekers]

UK to UK not included. UK to EU & NI included.

[packman90]

What about someone like myself who lives in Northern Ireland and sells to mainland UK. Will this have any impact on me being able to sell products from NI to UK? Thanks. 

[Anonymous]

What about someone like myself who lives in Northern Ireland and sells to mainland UK. Will this have any impact on me being able to sell products from NI to UK? Thanks.

I'm the same as yourself. Unless you want to jump through multiple hoops, you will have to stop selling to NI and just sell to England, Scotland and Wales. It is ludicrous that we won't be able to sell to our home province.

The other problem will be in December, will our GB suppliers still want to supply us.

[Anonymous]

Post number 45 was assuming you were a business seller.

[camerapartsuk]

Never even thought about people living in NI being affected by not being able to sell something in Northern Ireland!! 

That is surreal.

Best open an actual shop lol

[Anonymous]

Aye, an actual shop with possible empty shelves!

NI orders only account for about 5% for me, so no big loss there.

[4_bathrooms]

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@packman90 wrote:

What about someone like myself who lives in Northern Ireland and sells to mainland UK. Will this have any impact on me being able to sell products from NI to UK? Thanks. 

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A seller established in Northern Ireland who sells to buyers in Great Britain will not be affected; the rules affect products sold directly to consumers in the EEA/NI (not the other way around).

[4_bathrooms]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The other problem will be in December, will our GB suppliers still want to supply us.

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It shouldn't be a problem. Where a GB business is supplying an NI business the NI business is the importer and should have no further obligations than they currently do. That is, unless they are selling on those supplies directly to EU/EEA consumers (including Eire).  

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that. I do not sell onto EU/EEA/Eire consumers.

My concern was, with my GB supplier, would they have to update 1000's of their website product pages with GPSR manufacturer address details etc. If they did, and the amount of work involved, I am concerned that they would simply stop supplying NI/EU.

[4_bathrooms]

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@camerapartsuk wrote:

Never even thought about people living in NI being affected by not being able to sell something in Northern Ireland!! 

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As I understand it an NI business supplying an NI consumer isn't affected. The only NI sellers possibly affected are those supplying goods to NI buyers that are subject to EU harmonisation rules; i.e. CE marking. When an NI business sells such a product to an NI buyer it must have either a CE mark (if using an EU assessment body) or CE and UKNI marking (if using a UK assessment body). However, the business or their supplier(s) should have already ensured this is in place.

[4_bathrooms]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My concern was, with my GB supplier, would they have to update 1000's of their website product pages with GPSR manufacturer address details etc. 

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Assuming you are purchasing from them directly - i.e. not via an online marketplace or other avenue open to consumers - you are the importer (economic operator) and therefore you are responsible for the safety of your products. You are legally responsible for ensuring any goods you sell to NI consumers meet any applicable EU harmonisation standards as well as any UK product safety standards including any UK rules that only apply in NI (this mostly applies to toys and PPE).

[Anonymous]

Assuming you are purchasing from them directly - i.e. not via an online marketplace or other avenue open to consumers - you are the importer (economic operator) and therefore you are responsible for the safety of your products. You are legally responsible for ensuring any goods you sell to NI consumers meet any applicable EU harmonisation standards as well as any UK product safety standards including any UK rules that only apply in NI (this mostly applies to toys and PPE).

Thankyou.

[4_bathrooms]

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@fatbobfan wrote:

Took some of ours down, looks like it was testing the water so to speak,

We have toy inventory and we had a compliance document requests in May/June, we couldnt comply, inventory removed for a policy violation. 

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When you say removed do you mean removed entirely; i.e. the listings and their associated sales histories were completely lost?

[fatbobfan]

Correct,  unable to relist or sell similar 

CS confirmed sales history is now lost,

I did ask CS if I could create a new listing and remove from GPSR countries but no one could confirm what would happen if compliance dept would take down so didnt want to waste time.

So when Ebay start rolling this out to all, a lot of sellers (in theory) could have their inventory removed if they dont action GPSR requirements in time. We know Decemebr 13th is the date, but when will compliance departmen start issuing? We started in May, had 5 listings, another seller I know had 1, connectingminds had 12 in their post. 

This is of course if Ebay stick to rolling out they showed some? Toy Sellers, it may change, but if it doesnt many sellers will be sent compliance document request for what number? who knows, When? we dont know, but if sellers get these requests and are unable to suplly the documents and Ebay stick to the route they showed us in June, Sales History and listings gone

Again, that is if they roll it out the same way, we had no communication other than the 'get ready for GPSR' general communcation, Going to be bonkers if they do and if they mass comply on accounts? thats a lost of inventory to loose and a lot of work to make new listings

[moonspender]

ebay weekly chat tomorrow, opens at 2pm, good time to ask questions, recommend taking the time to write your question and make sure you follow their guidelines 

[4_bathrooms]

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@fatbobfan wrote:

Correct,  unable to relist or sell similar 

CS confirmed sales history is now lost

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I believe this is why:

"The obligations imposed by this Regulation on providers of online marketplaces should not amount to a general obligation to monitor the information which they transmit or store, nor should they require providers of online marketplaces to actively seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activity, such as the sale of dangerous products online. Nonetheless, in order to benefit from the exemption from liability for hosting services under Directive 2000/31/EC and Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, providers of online marketplaces should remove content referring to an offer of a dangerous product from their online interfaces expeditiously, upon obtaining actual knowledge or, in the case of claims for damages, upon becoming aware of the content referring to an offer of a dangerous product, in particular in cases in which the provider of online marketplace has been made aware of facts or circumstances on the basis of which a diligent economic operator should have identified the illegality in question."

I believe that means any business offering non-excluded products to the EEA/NI is eventually at risk of those listings vanishing into the ether if they are unable to provide details of an EU-established economic operator. eBay have clearly started with the obvious products - i.e. toys - I imagine it will be a gradual progression through all products requiring CE marking then finally everything that isn't specifically excluded by the GPSRs. If the seller can't provide details of an economic operator when asked for them then *poof* - their listing vanishes.

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@fatbobfan wrote:

I did ask CS if I could create a new listing and remove from GPSR countries but no one could confirm what would happen if compliance dept would take down so didnt want to waste time.

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I can't see a problem with that provided when the listing is created the associated postage/shipping policy excludes all EEA countries and NI. Something I'm not 100% sure about is whether the "Exclude postage locations" option applies to listings enrolled in the GSP or not. If that option doesn't apply to GSP listings things might get interesting with eBay's habit of auto-enrolling sellers into GSP with no warning even when sellers have consciously opted-out previously.  
 

[fatbobfan]

I contacted 5th June, politely chased 7th July from my business account, nothing.

Other issues relating to 2023 still outstanding, messages 'missed', promised communcations not received

For whatever reason, I have had no communication on this and other issues, I dont find it/some of them a good customer experience.

[bluefrogtoysltd]

I'm even more confused than I was a week ago about our ebay listings...Amazon confirmed multiple times that a UK Amazon store/seller won't have to make any changes...but on ebay we need to remove our NI delivery option?

This makes no sense.

And my Royal Mail account manager didn't know anything about this...will take about two weeks for them to escalate to the right person and find out what's going on.

Totally confused!