EU and UK consumer rights for your storefront

Who this applies to

It applies to you if you sell to consumers, meaning people buying for purposes outside their trade, and those people are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom. It applies wherever your business is established: the test is where your shopper is and whether you direct your selling at them, not where your company is registered.

In the European Union the instrument is the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83 as implemented by each member state, which is why some details differ by country. In the United Kingdom it is the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, with the Consumer Rights Act 2015 alongside it for quality and conformity.

It does not apply to a business to business sale. If you sell only to other traders, none of the 14 day machinery below is yours, although the pre-contract clarity is still worth having.

The 14 day right of withdrawal

A consumer buying at a distance may cancel within 14 days without giving any reason and without penalty. For goods the clock starts the day the consumer, or somebody they nominated, physically receives them. For an order delivered in several shipments it starts on the last one. For a service the clock starts on the day the contract was concluded.

Once the consumer tells you they are cancelling you have 14 days to refund. The refund includes the price and the outbound delivery charge, although you only have to refund the cheapest standard delivery you offered rather than the express option they chose. You may hold the refund until the goods are back with you or until the consumer shows they have sent them, whichever happens first, and the consumer normally pays the cost of sending them back if you told them so before the sale.

Refund by the same means the consumer paid unless they agree otherwise, and never charge a fee for the refund itself.

The model withdrawal form

You have to give the consumer a model withdrawal form as part of the pre-contract information. They do not have to use it, and any clear statement of the decision to cancel works, but the form has to be there and it has to be given in a form they can keep.

The wording is prescribed by law rather than left to you. It comes from Annex I part B of the Directive and from Schedule 3 of the UK Regulations, and it carries your trading name, your geographic address, your email address, a space for the order and the dates, and the consumer's name and address.

Crate does not ship a model withdrawal form template. The prescribed wording has not been reviewed by a lawyer for the member states crate serves, and shipping a paraphrase of a statutory form is worse than shipping nothing at all. Take the wording from the implementing law in the country you are selling into, or from your own adviser, rather than from a summary like this one.

The exceptions, and the one that catches people

The withdrawal right does not apply to everything. These are the exceptions a small merchant actually meets.

Made to order and personalised goods

Goods made to the consumer's specification or clearly personalised for them. A printed name on a mug counts. A choice between four colours you already stock does not.

Goods that spoil

Perishable goods, and goods liable to deteriorate or expire quickly.

Sealed goods unsealed after delivery

Where the seal exists for health protection or hygiene reasons and the consumer has broken it. The seal has to be there for that reason, not merely be present.

Digital content, and only on strict conditions

Downloads and access lose the withdrawal right only where the consumer gave express prior consent to supply starting inside the 14 days and acknowledged that they were losing the right, and you gave them confirmation of both. That is a recorded checkbox at checkout with its own wording, not a line in your terms. Miss the record and the right survives, which is the most common digital goods failure in Europe.

Sealed audio, video and software

Where the consumer unsealed it after delivery.

What you have to tell a shopper before they pay

Article 6 of the Directive lists the pre-contract information, and it has to be given in a clear and comprehensible way before the consumer is bound, not buried in terms they accept afterwards.

• Your identity, your trading name, your geographic address, your telephone number and your email address.
• The main characteristics of what you are selling.
• The total price inclusive of all taxes, plus all delivery and other charges, or where those cannot be calculated in advance, how they will be worked out.
• The arrangements for payment, delivery and performance, and the date by which you undertake to deliver.
• Your complaint handling policy.
• The existence of the 14 day right of withdrawal, its conditions and time limit, how to exercise it, and the model withdrawal form.
• Who pays the return costs, and where the consumer pays them, an estimate where the goods cannot go back by ordinary post.
• A reminder that a legal guarantee of conformity applies, and the terms of any commercial guarantee or after sales service you offer.
• The duration of the contract, and how to end it where it is open ended or renews.

The penalty for leaving out the withdrawal information is specific and it is expensive: the 14 day period extends to 12 months and 14 days. One missing sentence turns a two week window into a year.

The order button

Article 8(2) requires the consumer to explicitly acknowledge that the order carries an obligation to pay, and where the order is placed by activating a button, that the button is labelled unambiguously to say so. Wording to the effect of order with obligation to pay is the safe form. Buttons reading Complete order, Confirm or Continue have been held insufficient in German proceedings.

The penalty is that the consumer is not bound by the contract at all, which means an order you cannot enforce and a refund you cannot refuse.

The guarantee of conformity, which is not a withdrawal

A withdrawal is the consumer changing their mind. A conformity claim is the goods being wrong, and it is a separate obligation with a much longer clock.

In the European Union the Sale of Goods Directive 2019/771 gives a minimum two year liability for a lack of conformity that existed at delivery, with the burden of proof on you for the first year and for two years in several member states. Some member states give longer. This right cannot be signed away in your terms.

In the United Kingdom the Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives a short term right to reject within 30 days of delivery for goods that are not of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose or as described, then a right to repair or replacement, and a final right to reject after that.

Prices, tax and announced reductions

Prices shown to a consumer in the European Union and the United Kingdom include tax. A price that adds VAT at the last step of checkout is not a consumer price, it is a trade price shown to a consumer, and it is a common reason a storefront attracts a consumer protection complaint.

Under the Omnibus Directive any announcement of a price reduction has to state the lowest price you applied in the 30 days before it. A struck through figure, a percentage off and introductory pricing are all announcements of a reduction for this purpose.

Delivery charges, surcharges and any additional cost have to be shown before the consumer is bound, and a pre ticked box that adds a cost is not consent to it.

Complaints and dispute resolution

You have to tell consumers how to complain to you, and where you are committed to using an alternative dispute resolution body, whether by law or through a trade body, you have to name it and link to it.

The European Commission's online dispute resolution platform was shut down in July 2025. If your storefront still carries the link traders were once required to publish, remove it. A link to a service that no longer exists is worse than no link, and crate will not add one.

What to do this week

• Publish a returns and withdrawal page on your storefront covering the 14 days, how to tell you, who pays return postage and how long a refund takes.
• Put the withdrawal information and the model form in the order confirmation email as well as on the site, because it has to be given on a durable medium.
• Check that every consumer price on your store shows tax included, including on category pages and in search results.
• If you sell digital content, stop relying on your terms and record the acknowledgement against each order, even if that means a manual note until the checkbox ships.
• Write down the lowest price of the last 30 days before you announce any reduction.

What crate does today, and what it does not do yet

This is the honest list, checked against the product rather than estimated. Nothing below is a plan presented as a feature.