Shopify Adopts Consumer Safety Settings in Europe

The Commission said in a statement that Shopify has agreed to make changes regarding customer safety and the fight against counterfeit products, following a regulatory response in the European Union following a series of complaints.

The amendments agreed to include a commitment to establish a "quick and effective" notification and action procedure for national consumer authorities to report issues they identify. It includes agreements to change its templates to encourage vendors to be more transparent with consumers.

According to the EU, the complaints that peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic appear to be mainly related to webshops hosted by the B2B e-commerce platform, which were found to engage in illegal practices such as making fake offers.

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Shopify Agrees to Provide Related Company Details

Shopify said it agreed to close stores and provide "relevant company details" to regulators when concerns were raised by national consumer protection authorities in the EU. Regarding its templates, the EU said that Shopify is committed to adding fields for company information and contact information to providers for its Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policies, and Refund Policies, in addition to the templates of its web stores' contact pages.

It also added that it agreed to provide clear guidance to traders on applicable EU consumer law. The background to this is that the EU started a dialogue with Shopify in July 2021 with the EU's national network of consumer protection (CPC) officials to make changes to address the illegal practices of merchants on its platform.

In a statement, justice broker Didier Reynders welcomed Shopify's commitments;