The estimated value of unsafe products on the EU market is currently €19.3 billion.
The new product safety regulation is expected to decrease this figure by €1 billion by the end of 2025, while the cumulative effects of the GPSR and the reduction in consumer detriment will generate over €5.5 billion in savings.
So, despite making it seemingly difficult to place new products on European digital markets, the General Product Safety Regulation should positively affect the EU’s digital and offline marketplaces by reducing the presence of dangerous products.
eBay sellers already present on European marketplaces must take immediate action to comply with this regulation to avoid interruptions of their operations.
The process of getting familiar with the GPSR compliance requirements and updating the product listing information can be daunting and time-consuming.
We’ll walk you through all you need to know about GPSR to continue operating on eBay’s markets in the EU without interruption.
What is The General Product Safety Regulation?
The EU’s extensive regulatory framework aims to protect consumers and create a safe environment for users of online ecommerce platforms.
Consequently, merchants must comply with a long list of regulatory requirements in order to place their products on an EU or Northern Ireland marketplace.
The General Product Safety Regulation is the EU’s new legislation, replacing the General Product Safety Directive.
The regulation, which went into effect in December 2024, addresses the challenges presented by the rapid growth of e-commerce marketplaces and the emergence of new technologies with a strong focus on consumer protection.
Its goal is to ensure that all consumer products sold on European offline and online marketplaces are safe for consumers and to strengthen market surveillance in all member states.
The GPSR primarily aims to protect vulnerable groups of consumers, such as children, older individuals, or people with disabilities.
The EU product safety laws make manufacturers, importers, or distributors responsible for product safety and outline steps to ensure that consumers have easy access to information about a product.
Consequently, all economic operators, whether they are manufacturers, importers or distributors, must:
- Supply a product’s technical documentation
- Meet product traceability requirements
- Appoint and add an EU Responsible Person contact details to product listings on online marketplaces
- Report accidents caused by the products they’re offering to relevant market surveillance authorities
- Follow the product recall rules
Fortunately, not all sellers on eBay have to complete these steps alone. However, they must obtain all the necessary information from the manufacturer in case they don’t produce the product they sell on the platform.
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The GPSR and online marketplaces in the EU
Article 22 of the GPSR outlines the obligations of online marketplace providers regarding the safety of the products available on their platforms.
eBay, Amazon, and other vast online marketplaces must fulfill these obligations and collaborate with authorities to identify and remove potentially harmful products from the EU’s digital markets.
The obligations of online marketplace providers include the following:
- Designating a point of contact for the MSA and registering at the Safety Gate Portal
- Providing a communication channel consumers can use to discuss safety issues
- Setting up internal processes to ensure compliance with GPSR
- Removing listings of potentially harmful products and all similar items upon request from MSA
- Suspending the accounts of non-compliant sellers for a reasonable period
- Publishing information about product recalls
- Collaborating with the MSA and economic operators on eliminating or mitigating the risks a product poses to consumers
As a result, eBay sellers must update all listings, check if the EU Responsible Person is already available for their products, and, if not, appoint a new one and add all the missing information to comply with the GPSR because the platform must remove all non-compliant listings.
In addition to risking listing removals and account suspensions, non-compliant sellers can receive fines of up to 4% of their worldwide turnaround.
That’s why it’s paramount to update all product listings available on eBay’s European marketplaces and follow the platform’s GPSR guidelines for each new product you want to offer in one or more EU member states.
The Scope of GPSR
Nearly all eBay sellers on EU markets are affected by GPSR.
However, whether or not a seller must update the listings in their eBay store depends on the products they offer.
The regulation applies to all non-food consumer products, so if you sell clothes, smartphone accessories, health and beauty products, or similar products, you must update your listings to contain the mandatory information.
Here’s the overview of product categories excluded from GPSR:
- Living animals and plants
- Medical products for animals and humans
- Antiques and works of art
- Plant protection products
- Food and beverages
Sellers that offer products that fall within the scope of the GPSR must take the following steps to ensure compliance:
- Review and gather the technical documentation for each item in their eBay store.
- Appoint an EU Responsible Person
- Translate all necessary documents to the local market’s language
- Update product listings to include the mandatory safety information and manufacturer details
- Ensure that product images clearly depict the item
- Add a product manual or similar document containing information about the safe use and disposal of the product to the product listing.
- Ensure that product listings contain proper safety warnings
The GPSR compliance for eBay Sellers
The path to GPSR compliance is slightly different for manufacturers, importers, and distributors.
So, digital merchants on eBay’s European markets that don’t produce items they’re offering on these markets can contact the manufacturer to obtain the documents and information they need to comply with the product safety regulation.
Let’s go through all the steps an eBay seller must take to ensure all items in their store are GPSR compliant.
Drafting and collecting technical documentation
All products on the EU’s marketplaces must be accompanied by mandatory technical documentation. The item’s manufacturer is responsible for drafting these files and ensuring they contain information about its design, production process, and intended use.
The document should contain the following elements:
- Product description: This section summarizes the product’s features, design, and materials, as well as the manufacturer’s or EU Responsible Person’s contact details.
- Test reports: The information about the safety testing the manufacturer conducted to evaluate and verify that a product is safe for use.
- Labels and Manuals: These documents should contain information about how to properly use or upkeep a product and safety warnings.
- Risk analysis: All hazards a product can potentially cause should be listed in this section. The analysis should address foreseeable risks and those that are difficult to anticipate, as well as offer an overview of the steps the manufacturer has taken to alleviate those hazards.
- Compliance with EU standards: The overview of all EU standards a product is compliant with, which proves its conformity with GPSR.
- Product traceability: Serial number, production dates, and other information that allow for easy product tracing throughout the supply chain.
Although eBay sellers acting as distributors of the products they sell in the EU aren’t responsible for drafting the technical documentation, knowing which information these files should contain can make it easier to confirm their compliance with GPSR.
Conducting an internal risk assessment
The regulation introduces a mandatory obligation for manufacturers to complete an internal assessment of the safety risks. The risk assessment is more comprehensive than the risk analysis, which only pinpoints the potential hazards and lists the steps a manufacturer took to mitigate them.
The manufacturer must consider the following aspects when conducting a risk assessment:
- An item’s features, including the technical properties, design, and materials used in its production.
- Predictable effects and outcomes of product’s interaction with other products.
- Assessment of the product’s suitability for vulnerable categories of consumers, such as children. The evaluation’s outcome should be included in the product’s labeling to inform the user about the potential risks and proper use and disposal methods.
- Evaluation of a product’s potential for misuse, particularly for products resembling food or with an appearance that could be appealing to children even if the product isn’t meant to be used by children.
Translating the technical documentation
The GPSR mandates that sellers must make a product’s technical documentation available to shoppers on eBay or other online marketplaces in the market’s local language. However, manufacturers don’t always include the translations of technical files with a product.
That’s why eBay sellers must ensure that product documentation is accurately translated into the language most consumers on a particular market understand. However, these documents don’t necessarily have to be added to a product listing on eBay.
Listings must provide safety and warning information either through images or in the product description section. Moreover, all listings must contain data that allows for a quick identification of products, such as serial numbers or model names.
Appointing an EU Responsible Person
Aside from the essential information about a product, eBay listings must also feature information about a product manufacturer or the EU-based Responsible Person.
It’s important to note that an authorized representative can act as a Responsible Person only if the manufacturer or a digital retailer gives them a written mandate. Moreover, eBay sellers can appoint their fulfillment service provider as their EU Responsible Person if the provider is established in the EU.
Businesses established in one of the EU member states can act as their own EU Responsible Person for all products they offer on eBay or other online platforms.
Conversely, sellers outside the European Union must check if an EU Responsible Person is available for products in the store.
Manufacturers often appoint an EU Responsible Person for their products, so sellers must reach out to them and check if the producer can provide them with the contact details of the Responsible Person for their products.
If the EU Responsible Person isn’t available for one or more products in an eBay seller’s inventory, they must appoint an EU Responsible Person on their own.
It’s important to note that an EU Responsible Person acts as a business’s point of contact for market surveillance authorities. They can assist merchants with product documentation reviews and ensure compliance with GPSR across the entire inventory.
Updating eBay listings
Identifying the missing information and adding it to multiple listings on eBay’s European markets can be a lengthy task.
Nonetheless, sellers must ensure that their listings contain mandatory information, like the EU Responsible Person’s contact details, product manufacturer’s name, product identification, or labels that clearly indicate potential safety hazards, to avoid having their listings removed from eBay’s EU markets.
Webinterpret’s automated GPSR compliance solution can drastically speed up this process and help sellers save time and resources gathering the technical files, translating them, and uploading them to appropriate listings.
The solution is available to all international eBay sellers. It allows them to effortlessly check the missing GPSR compliance data and add it to their listings or find out if an EU Responsible Person for a specific item is already available.
Increase consumer protection with an automated GPSR compliance solution for eBay sellers
The EU’s new product safety rules aim to make online marketplaces safer for consumers and sellers by tightening market surveillance and increasing safety standards.
As a result, selling in the EU has gotten more complicated for eBay sellers as they must gather all relevant data and make it readily available to consumers and market surveillance authorities.
Appointing an EU Responsible Person, gathering technical files, ensuring they’re accurately translated, and updating listings are tedious manual tasks that require significant effort.
Webinterpret automates these tasks for you so that you can focus on growing your brand across European digital markets.
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.
