Europe’s ecommerce market is expected to generate $456.14 billion in revenue by the end of 2025.
Moreover, the number of consumers shopping online continues to grow. In 2024, 94% of people aged between 16 and 74 used the Internet within the last year, and 77% of those people purchased or ordered products online.
These metrics show that the EU’s e-commerce industry is expanding rapidly, creating significant opportunities for international sellers.
However, $4.6 billion worth of low-quality goods entered the EU in 2024 alone, posing a significant safety risk to its consumers and continuing a yearslong trend.
The new product safety regulation replaces the general product safety directive to make it more difficult for harmful or low-quality products to find their way to digital marketplaces in the EU member states by introducing a series of requirements for distributors, manufacturers, and importers to meet before making a product available to consumers.
This article will walk you through the steps sellers must take to make product listings on eBay, Amazon, and other digital markets GPSR-compliant and provide tips that will make this process faster and easier.
Selling on digital marketplaces in the European Union after GPSR
Europe’s new product safety regulations address the rapid growth of digital marketplaces and the fact that just six member states supervised 89% of imported products sold online.
This metric reveals the importance of strengthening market surveillance throughout the EU to ensure consumer protection and the need for the reduction of economic operators that aren’t trustworthy.
The GPSR defines marketplace providers as:
‘a provider of an intermediary service using an online interface which allows consumers to conclude distance contracts with traders for the sale of products.’
Furthermore, the document describes an online interface as:
‘Any software, including a website, part of a website, or an application, including mobile applications.’
Consequently, as service providers, eBay, Amazon, and other European online marketplaces must comply with GPSR and collaborate with market surveillance authorities to ensure consumer product safety.
The regulation mandates that marketplace providers must take steps to detect, identify, remove, and prevent access to consumer product listings promoting harmful or unsafe products.
In addition, their interface must allow sellers to inform consumers about the product’s manufacturer, EU Responsible Person, its safety, and potential hazards it poses to consumers.
Online marketplaces must remove all product listings that don’t meet the GPSR compliance requirements. They can also penalize non-compliant sellers by suspending their accounts or removing listings from their stores.
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Understanding General Product Safety Regulation compliance
The GPSR imposes responsibility on the economic operator for the safety of products entering the EU. That is why online marketplace providers and sellers must ensure that each item meets the GPSR compliance requirements.
However, the regulation sets different compliance requirements for manufacturers, importers, and distributors.
So, the steps sellers must take to ensure their products comply with the product safety regulations depends on the merchant’s position in the supply chain.
eBay sellers don’t have to draft technical documentation or conduct a risk analysis for the products they place on the platform’s European marketplaces because they can obtain it from a manufacturer or supplier.
Nonetheless, merchants cannot continue their operations unless they’re established in one of the EU member countries or appoint a representative established in the EU to manage their communication with market surveillance authorities.
Sellers don’t have to appoint an EU Responsible Person if the manufacturers of all items they offer in their stores on online marketplaces have already appointed a responsible person for their products.
Overview of GPSR compliance requirements
The most crucial step sellers must take on their way to GPSR compliance is determining which product safety requirements they must meet.
For instance, a business that produces toys it wants to sell on European online marketplaces must assess the safety of its products and include the findings in the technical documentation, product labels, and listings on online marketplaces.
The safety assessment must be conducted in accordance with the international, EU, and member state’s safety standards.
Moreover, the manufacturer’s risk assessment of a product must take into account a variety of factors ranging from the item’s design and the materials used to produce it to its suitability for different consumer categories and its potential for misuse.
The manufacturer must also consider the item’s cybersecurity, environmental, and mental health impact to ensure a product is safe for consumers of all ages.
Aside from providing the mandatory technical documentation, manufacturers must equip each product with the necessary labels, manuals, and safety warnings. Each product should also contain the contact information of the responsible economic operator, either the manufacturer or the EU Responsible Person.
Online sellers who act as distributors of products they offer on digital markets in Europe have similar responsibilities to manufacturers, with the exception of conducting the safety assessment and drafting the technical files.
Here’s the overview of GPSR requirements for distributors:
- Obtaining the technical documentation for each product placed on an online marketplace in the EU.
- Determining if an EU Responsible Person is available for a product and appointing a responsible person if not.
- Creating GPSR-compliant product labels
- Adding the manufacturer’s or EU Responsible Person’s contact details, product identification information, safety information, and images that accurately depict an item.
- Translating all technical documentation and relevant information featured in product listings to the market’s local language.
A distributor must cease the sales of products that don’t comply with GPSR by removing them from an online marketplace. Furthermore, they must notify the manufacturer or importer about non-compliance or safety issues and take corrective actions to recover the item from consumers.
GPSR compliance tips for international sellers
Businesses cannot resume or start operating on Europe’s online marketplaces until each product in their inventory is GPSR compliant.
This task can be daunting, especially for sellers offering thousands of products on European digital marketplaces. Let’s look at the tips that can make the road to GPSR compliance easier.
Automate inventory analysis
The new product safety regulation applies to all non-food products, so unless you’re offering products from one of the categories exempt from GSPR, like medicinal products or antiques, you’ll have to update your product listings available to consumers in the EU.
Reviewing your entire inventory manually and checking for missing information can take considerable time and effort.
What’s more, you can easily miss a specific product safety obligation when manually reviewing listings for the data you must collect to meet the GPSR compliance requirements.
Webinterpret’s automated GPSR compliance solution completes this task quickly and efficiently. The solution analyses your inventory on an online marketplace like eBay or Amazon and suggests the information you should add to your listings to meet the GPSR requirements.
Once you review its suggestions, the tool automatically adds the missing information to your listings.
Check if an EU Responsible Person is available for your products
As noted earlier, a manufacturer can appoint an EU Responsible Person for its products. As a result, product distributors can use the same responsible person as a point of contact for market surveillance authorities.
All online sellers must include the manufacturer’s and EU Responsible Person’s contact information in their product listings on online marketplaces.
You should contact the product’s manufacturer or your supplier to determine if the EU Responsible Person is already available for the products you’re offering in the EU.
It is paramount to remember that you must appoint an EU Responsible Person if a responsible person isn’t available for one or more products in your EU online store.
Preparing the technical documentation for the EU market
Sellers must obtain technical documentation from the manufacturer for all products they want to offer on online marketplaces in the EU. They must also check that the files they collect contain all the necessary information.
The GPSR-compliant technical documentation should have the following segments:
- Product description
- Risk analysis and risk assessment (conducted internally by the manufacturer)
- Labels and manuals containing instructions for safe use, age suitability, and other relevant information that reduces risks.
- The product’s suitability for consumer categories with a focus on vulnerable consumers such as children or people with disabilities.
- Information regarding potential unintentional misuse due to the item’s resemblance to food.
- The list of cybersecurity features that protect users from malicious actors.
Distributors must check if the technical documentation they receive from manufacturers contains these elements and take appropriate action to amend the documentation if some elements are missing.
Creating GPSR-compliant product listings
After obtaining the mandatory information, sellers must update their product listings to ensure compliance with the General Product Safety Regulation.
This involves adding the address, email address, and telephone number of the product manufacturer and EU Responsible Person to listings.
In addition, listings should include product identifiers, safety warnings and instructions in the market’s local language, and CE markings when necessary.
Using an automation solution to update all product listings in your EU store can help speed up the process and enable you to meet the GPSR compliance requirements faster.
Translating technical files and product listings
Localization is vital to GPSR compliance, as all technical files must be available in the language most consumers in a particular market understand.
However, manufacturers don’t always translate a product’s technical documentation into the language of the marketplace where an online seller wants to distribute it.
Digital retailers must ensure that these files are accurately translated into the language of the EU market in which they operate.
Translating product listings into the market’s local language isn’t a GPSR compliance requirement, but it can help sellers attract more customers. Webinterpret’s localization service can help eBay sellers establish a strong presence on European markets.
Relying on automation to meet GPSR compliance requirements
Ecommerce is one of the fastest-growing industries in the European Union, and it will continue to expand in the years to come.
Digital retailers based outside of the EU or in one of its member states have much to gain by complying with the Union’s new product safety requirements, as it gives them access to a vast and diverse audience.
However, the path to GPSR compliance isn’t always straightforward, as the product safety requirements sellers must meet depend on a wide range of factors.
Webinterpret’s GPSR compliance automation solution assists sellers with finding the easiest path to the EU’s online marketplaces by simplifying the process of identifying missing information and adding it to product listings.
About Webinterpret
Webinterpret supports merchants selling on eBay.
Our AI-based solutions enable more effective selling through automated listing localization, advertising, and returns and ensure all products placed on EU markets are GPSR-compliant.
By giving your international customers a full, end-to-end local shopping experience, Webinterpret improves your conversion and helps establish your business globally.
