International EU cross-border trading

I know that a few TT'ers operate internet businesses or shop-based businesses which also offer international trading by internet or mail order, so you may be surprised to hear that the ability to trade across EU borders is about to be made so difficult and costly, that it will no longer be feasible for anyone other than extremely large, multi-national corporations.

The "Distance Selling" law came into force some years ago now, but the main feature of this law was to ensure that consumers had the right to return goods if they were not satisfied. This law is about to be changed, (sorry, proposed changes voted upon) during February this year.

If the proposed changes are implemented, it will mean that all customer complaints must be dealt with under the 27 different legal systems of the member nations. This is because any business will be completed / contracted under the consumer law of the country where the buyer resides, not the seller. Therefore, anyone selling across EU borders MUST undertake a study of the requirements of all countires to which they sell and be prepared to deal with any complaints under those countries' laws.

This specifically states cross-EU borders.

Does this mean that in our supposed single-market economy of the EU, it will be far easier and more feasible for me to sell outside the EU than within it?

More details via The Times: EU law ‘will hit selling on internet’

Storm in a teacup. If you treat all your customers in a reasonable way - i.e. refund them or replace etc when things go wrong you are not gonna fall foul of
any local laws in Europe.

No European country is gonna have harsher consumer laws than Germany or the UK. These things never end up legal anyway - they always get sorted by
the credit card company etc.

Imagine you sell a "widget" to a consumer in Romania. You do not know the local laws in Romania. The widget breaks. You need to sort the consumer out - doesn't matter what their local law says. Doesn't scare me in the slightest. Ultimately if a customer drives you bonkers - you just refund them - end of chat.

I would have already assumed that I was subject to the local consumer laws when selling into Italy anyway, or certainly some general European laws. Just get on with business and don't worry about toffee like this.

p.s. Just remember that when you sell OVER the VAT threshold into any European country - you must register for VAT in that country! But that is not new.

JE,
I can understand your initial response of "Storm in a Teacup", I can only hope that this is correct, but I really doubt it. I have spent the day looking at various EU regulations on "Distance Selling" and at the new proposals. It is not just a case of "if there are problems", but this amendment goes deep into inot 'local' trading laws.

It seems that some EU countries require all kinds of background checks before allowing a company or person to trade in that country. This will now apply!
Basically, anyone selling internationally by mail order, telephone or internet will HAVE to ensure that they meet all local trading laws of every EU country they are selling into, or face being put out of business.

I have already seen that just the threat of this law coming into force has already stopped many traders in my own line of business from even accepting orders from anywhere outside of Germany.

As for my own business, I am not yet over the VAT threshold for total sales in a year.
MT

Good. They must have bollocks the size of peanuts if they have cacked their pants already and stopped taking orders from outside of Germany.

Internet trading is never a perfect plan, every day brings new issues and problems. I don't think for a minute that this is gonna be any big deal at all. At worst someone will spring up with translated documents for €10 letting you know in your own language, for every country, what you can and cannot do under local laws.

There is no way that other European countries will be able to put a BAN ON IMPORTS (which is what you are saying) because the company you are purchasing from is not registered in your home country. That would be like going back 100 years in time.

In theory you are saying, just for example, that as we live in Germany we will be unable to purchase from retailers in the UK who are unregistered in Germany??? It's crap. It will never work like that.