#GPSR requirements

[calamari-inari]

Pre-orders are open until December 30 for my Ace Attorney Rubber Keychains Mega Collection! ⚖️

I'm offering select packs for the deepest discount!

*** Please note that Miles, Franziska, and Gumshoe are present in the Phoenix Wright Trilogy and Investigations Collection

*** BONUS CHARACTER: JUDGE - You may receive the Judge for free if your order total for this listing is $50+ USD excluding shipping and taxes!

If your order contains only characters that are currently in stock, shipment will occur the coming Saturday of the week the order is made

Edit:

Heartbreaking news, but I will no longer sell to the EU starting now (excluding UK)

There's a new act rolling out December 13 where I must have a "Responsible Person" appointed, requiring technical documentation. Yeah, I'm not dealing with that

[waywardstation]

I wanted to make this post much sooner but I have lost track of the days, I apologize!

I will be closing my store TOMORROW, DECEMBER 13. I meant to keep it open, but I decided I’m closing it as I’ve just not felt well enough to pack and take any orders I get, I’ll only be willing to do one more round of packing at most right now.

Additionally, after this day I am stopping orders to Europe due to the new GPSR’s effect on shipping policies coming into effect tomorrow, December 13th. Among other things, it requires heavy and extensive documentation, and a person within the EU I can list as responsible for my product. These are things that I cannot give at this time.

So, I am stopping orders to Europe indefinitely, and I will do my best to figure out if it’s possible to ever somehow pass these regulations legally and get it back up, so I can begin selling to Europe again.

Again I apologize for how last-minute this is, I had lost track of the days.

If you’d like to purchase something now, now is your chance —➡️visit my shop here!⬅️

Additionally, I have plans for next year when I open again in January. Preorders for new products in the later half of the month, a large interest check form, and an attempt to extending my products to Etsy. (I am hoping that maybe Etsy could help with the EU responsible person part in the future at least, but I am unsure).

Thank you for your time! Again I apologize for the closure to EU countries. I will do my best to figure out how to get that going again.

[joyousjoyfuljoyness]

Just learned about the new GPSR Compliance rules coming into effect in a week...

It's requiring anything sold and shipped to the EU to have the following:

Product Compliance

Ensure your products meet applicable EU safety standards (e.g., EN71 for toys or REACH for textiles).

They must also be safe under normal and foreseeable use, including proper testing and risk assessments.

Labeling Compliance

The following information must be included on the product or its packaging:

Your company name, address, and contact information.

Your EU Responsible Person's (EU RP) name, address, and contact information.

A product identifier (e.g., serial, model, or batch number).

Any applicable symbols, such as the CE Mark for toys.Safety warnings or instructions must be in the official language(s) of the EU country where the product is sold. For example, in France, all labelling must be in French. I've included more information regarding safety warnings/instructions and exemptions.

Self-Explanatory Products: Translations/Warnings Required?

Under the GPSR, self-explanatory products like books or candle holders may not require additional instructions or translations.

The key is whether the product's use and safety considerations are transparent to the average consumer without further explanation.

If so, the GPSR does not mandate additional instructions or translations.

Assessing each product individually to ensure compliance is essential. When in doubt, providing clear instructions in the appropriate language(s) is always a safe approach.

Appoint an EU Responsible Person (EU RP)

The EU RP acts as your legal representative in the EU. They are responsible for:

Holding compliance documentation (e.g., testing reports, technical files, declarations of conformity).

Ensuring labelling and documentation meet EU requirements.

Acting as the first point of contact for EU authorities if any compliance issues arise.

Yeah..... I can't comply with this, especially the appointing an EU Responsible Person. Really burdensome on most small businesses!

So I unfortunately had to turn off all shipment to the EU. Sigh.

[mayakern]

Hey Maya and friends!

Have you heard of the General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) that goes into effect in the EU on December 13th? How will this affect your ability to ship to the EU? I really hope it won't, because I love your skirts!

this won’t effect us at all!

our factory is in turkey and is way certified past what the GPSR requires and we are covered under that. GPSR also requires having an EU rep and our factory already has that bc they needed one to meet previous regulations so there won’t even be like an awkward transition period or anything because everything is already handled.

[cindylouwho-2]

The European Union's General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR): A Huge Mess For Some Small & Micro Businesses

Above is an email Amazon sent to sellers many months ago that covers the basics. Not all marketplaces were as forthcoming - or early - with info.

As many of you know, new laws coming into effect Friday December 13, 2024 affect businesses' ability to sell products into the European Union and Northern Ireland (EU and NI). The General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) impose various requirements on most goods being sold to the EU and NI, and some of those new rules will be very onerous for some small businesses. Furthermore, there are still some unanswered questions that the relevant government bodies hadn't covered until the European Commission did release some more details and an FAQ page very recently [pdf for download at the end of the first section on that page], and until public Q & A sessions were held.

This post contains a brief summary of the GPSR and of the key questions for common small business types, with the best answers I can find at this time. There is a section discussing problems on Etsy (which hasn't yet adapted their platform to the new regulations). I also compiled a list of helpful links including government and marketplace information pages, and places to obtain an "EU Responsible Person" to represent your business.

If anything gets clarified in the near future, this post will be updated.

What Does GPSR Require?

The Amazon summary in the screenshot at the top of this post is one of the easiest to understand, but a shorter overview may work better for some, so here is what eBay has to say:

To comply with the GPSR and related regulations, all business sellers listing items for sale in the EU and NI must include the following information: 1. The product manufacturer's name and contact information 2. If the manufacturer isn’t located in the EU or NI, you’ll have to indicate an EU-based Responsible Person or entity, along with their name and contact details 3. Any relevant product information like model number, pictures, and type 4. Product safety and compliance information like warnings and safety information (which can be included in labels and product manuals) in the local language 5. The CE marking when required by the related regulations applicable to your product

And yes, all of this applies to merchants of all stripes, including small and microbusinesses. Per the EU, “...the GPSR obligations apply to businesses of all sizes. Consumers are entitled to only safe products and therefore exceptions cannot be made based on the size of a business.”

Clearly there are significant hurdles for small and micro businesses: the cost of hiring a responsible person, and the cost of producing the required safety and use instructions and of translating them into local languages. Some may choose to stop sales to the EU and NI instead of complying.

Are There Any Exceptions?

Yes, several types of products are excluded, but most of those already subject to equally strict or even stricter regulations, e.g., medicine, foods, animals etc.

The two main known exceptions of interest to most of my readership are:

Antiques, which seem to be limited to items that are old (but no age is given, as far as I can tell) and generally to art or other collectible items.

Items already available for sale before December 13 of this year.

That second point is good news for many businesses, but please note it only seems to apply to stock made before December 13, not just listings made before that date. Once you run out and need to order or make more products, they then become subject to the GPSR.

Does The GPSR Apply To Digital Products?

It now appears that the new regulations cover items such as digital downloads. The FAQ pdf put out by the European Union very recently states "[t]he GPSR applies to all types of products (physical or digital products too, including software) that are placed or made available on the EU Single Market". At least some analysts agree this can include pretty much everything digital:

I can understand why some folks think that a knitting pattern or a simple art downloadable file should not be covered, and in the future once there is more discussion of and action taken under the GPSR, those products might be excluded. But note that the pdf of FAQs also states "[t]he GPSR is about avoiding and preventing “risks to both physical health and mental health”. Including image files and similar downloads therefore makes some sense.

How Do I Find A "Responsible Person" To Represent My Digital Download Business In The EU?

That's a good question, because I haven't found any verified sources saying they will cover digital items, or any digital sellers mentioning they have found coverage. Many have been denied by the companies they have contacted. [UPDATE: A company called EAS has agreed to represent at least one digital seller.]

If you are aware of any other firms or individuals offering "Responsible Person" services for digital products, please let me know!

(Remember, If you are in the EU/NI, you are the Responsible Person. If your products are manufactured in the EU/NI, the manufacturer is the Responsible Person.)

Does the GPSR Apply To Free Products?

Yes. From the FAQ pdf: "an item provided free of charge falls within the scope of the GPSR.”

In addition to complimentary physical items ("free gifts") sent out with orders, this would seem to include free downloads provided on blogs and social media, on a Patreon site, in YouTube descriptions etc. I’ve not seen much discussion on this aspect of the law for some reason.

Items Offered For Sale Before December 13 Are Exempt, But How Would The Government Know When I First Offered The Product Or When It Was Made?

If you had 100 widgets in stock before December 13 and had them listed on a marketplace or website, by law you can continue to sell those widgets to the EU and NI until all 100 are gone. And if you created a digital file and offered it online before December 13, it should be exempt forever, as long as you do not edit the file after December 13.

But proving you had 100 widgets already made, or that you listed a specific product before the law took effect could be difficult, especially for anyone handmaking their own items. If you are going to continue to sell to the EU and NI after December 13, keep careful records of which stock needs labelling, safety information and translations of use instructions.

Online marketplaces could also create problems if they don't display the date an item was first offered for sale, as happens on Etsy, for example. Every time an item renews, the visible date is reset, and it can be difficult to go through spreadsheets looking for the original listing date, and csv files may not be adequate proof under this law (since they can easily be changed after downloading).

Unfortunately, we won't truly know what evidence will be accepted in these circumstances until the authorities start enforcing these regulations, but this will only be a concern for anyone continuing to sell "old stock" into the EU and NI after December 13, so it is far from the largest concern.

The Case of Etsy - Failure To Comply With The GPSR

Unlike some other marketplaces, Etsy was fairly late in warning its sellers that the GPSR affected them, and how Etsy will approach the law. The blog post included the line "[s]hould Etsy receive a notification from an authority that your product is non-compliant, we will take appropriate action, which may include removing your listing and/or suspending your account." So, the stakes are high here - you could lose your Etsy shop if accused of not complying with the GPSR.

There are currently 2 problems for sellers who decide they can't/won't comply with the GPSR and therefore do not want to offer their items to the EU and NI any more:

Shipping to the UK on Etsy includes Northern Ireland, and sellers anywhere within the UK cannot remove the UK from their shipping profiles. That means they are forced to offer their goods to NI even if they don't want to.

Digital products on Etsy are sold to the whole world by default; there is no way to exclude any countries that Etsy allows sales to. That means every digital listing on Etsy is currently offered in the GPSR jurisdictions, regardless of the seller's wishes or compliance.

The GPSR was published on May 10, 2023. That gave everyone 19 months to get their ducks in a row. However, Etsy has so far done nothing to allow UK and digital sellers to remove their listings from being available in the EU and NI. Nothing.

Support has told some sellers that the corporation is working on it, and that UK sellers could just cancel any sales to NI:

However, it is not good enough to refuse to complete orders to the EU and NI. Any item offered for sale in the EU and NI is automatically subject to the GPSR; just allowing someone to check out is a violation, if the listing and product does not meet the law's requirements.

As of December 13, there is still no way to stop selling to Northern Ireland on Etsy if you are a seller in the United Kingdom, and there is no way for a digital product to be excluded from offer in either the EU or NI. Sadly, this means the only way shops can follow the law is to close for the time being, and some are planning on doing that.

Etsy has failed its sellers, and there is no excuse.

UPDATE (December 13, 2024): Etsy now says it is working on the issues of excluding the EU and NI, but still advises cancelling sales to those locations in the interim, which does not comply with the GPSR. The company had 19 months to figure this out, but they still need a few more weeks at a minimum? Absurd.

Resources and Responsible Person Offerings

I've compiled a separate post on my Patreon, listing some of the official legal and government resources on GPSR, as well as rules and Help pages from some major marketplaces and Print on Demand companies, and a short list of places you can hire a "Responsible Person" for your products:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/sources-and-for-117871846

Please let me know if you find any broken links there, or have other resources to add!

This post will be updated as required.

UPDATED: December 13, 2024

[dinchenix]

Thoughts about the coming GPSR?

(somewhat good in theory to protect buyers from dubious online listings)

unnecessary complicated for small businessnes (and dangerous if i truly have to put my adress on every single item),

ngl kinda feels only half cooked through bc nobody is 100% sure what it means for artists, especially at cons

will prob make it a lot more complicated for artists outside the EU to sell to the EU, bc they need a EU-rep here

for those that don't know about it: "The General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) sets labelling requirements for essentially all consumer products sold in the European Union. More specifically, it sets requirements that concern the product, manufacturer, and contact details."

(my thoughts about it are a mess, i have been trying gather the important info with fellow artists for the past week and we still are unsure about the details)

[dietmimo]

It's finally here: THE BLACK FRIDAY SHOP UPDATE! 10-50% OFF! Until Dec 3!

‼️‼️IMPORTANT updates regarding Canadian and EU orders‼️‼️

‼️‼️Temporarily NOT accepting orders from Canada until further notice‼️‼️

⭐️ Due to the ongoing strike with Canada Post, we currently have no other feasible alternatives to ship to Canada available at this time.

‼️‼️Last chance for EU customers as we will no longer be selling to the EU!‼️‼️

⭐️ Due to being unable to meet the new GPSR requirements that will be implemented this coming December, this Black Friday sale marks the last time we will be selling to the EU until further notice.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you have any questions, please feel free to send a DM. Happy shopping! ✨

[billfordzine]

EU Shipping going forward

Hello friends, this is a small update about the zine shipping-- there is a new law coming into effect on Dec. 13th for the EU called the GPSR. to summarize, it requires everyone shipping into the EU and NI to comply with safety regulation stuff on all items. All that to say, EU and NI shipping will potentially be effected by this, not particularly in price but just whether we'll be able to ship to the EU or NI at all. This of course, sucks hugely, but with such little information about the rules pertaining to small businesses available at this time we're unsure what we'll be able to do about the situation. Worst case scenario- the merch items will not be available to EU residents, but we are hoping we'll be able to get physical/digital zines printed within the EU so that they'll be available.

[thewickedhunt]

We deeply regret to announce that due to GPSR, we can no longer offer sales to the EU for the foreseeable future.

While our silicone is certified skin safe and our pigments are EU (and US) cosmetics approved, we are too small of an operation to afford official compliance testing or the retaining of an EU-based representative as required by GPSR. It is also unsafe for us to post our physical address online, as the TWH workshop is located on our personal property.

Until such time that we can figure out how to work within the new regulations, we have made the difficult decision to suspend sales to the EU. We are so sorry to our friends and fans in these affected countries.

As of today, you should no longer be able to check out from our website from any EU country. If any orders do go through, we will have to cancel them.

Thank you for your understanding.

[starglowy]

Hi, may I ask why my order does not work? :(

Are you not shipping worldwide?

I'm so sorry! I'm currently not shipping to Europe because of the "GPSR" aka "General Product Safety Regulation" for what I understand, merchants are required to have an economic operator located in EU and as a small business it is impossible for me :( Hopefully in the future, this changes and I'm able to ship to EU again, im so sorry for the inconvenience

[indiepressrevolution]

If you're a small creator or publisher who is still (understandably) confused about the EU Regulation 2023/988 on General Product Safety (GPSR) please read through this excellent post by Black Armada. It lays out the terms in a concise and easy to understand manner and matches up with everything we've been able to figure out about the regulation over the past few weeks.

If you haven't heard about the regulation yet, it affects every new product made from the 13th of December (2024) onward and gives a laundry list of requirements to be met before you can sell your product to anyone in the EU. Again, the above post talks through it in much more detail.

[warakami-vaporwave]

2D Soul is US only for now

Due to the new EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) rules I temporarily disabled sales outside of the US for now.

I haven't had time to refresh my site yet (I'm aiming aiming for early 2025) and I definitely don't have the time or mental bandwidth to look into these new rules. From what I understand they require me to put all my personal contact information and address on every single item listing which I'm not comfortable with.

(site-wise I unfortunately had my markets set to just 2 of them; US and then International. I'll add back in non-EU international markets sometime in 2025. EU? I'm not sure)

Things like this is why we launched Super Cassette as US-only since well, there is a lot of this type of thing.

[sanglunaria]

Last store update of the year plus the obligatory holiday sale!

Gingerbread Cookie Slowpoke has been added to my holiday ornament lineup! Store link here!

Please also note that due to GPSR requirements, I will no longer be shipping to EU countries once I reopen in next year! :( So if you live in the EU and have your eyes on something, get it while you can!

[nerdykeppie]

Hey, y'all - part of the reason we're doing this is because we are desperately trying to figure out an economical way to NOT have to turn off shipping to the EU entirely on December 13th when GPSR comes into effect.

As of right now, we don't have an agent in the EU (please don't offer, there are specific requirements) and as such may have to turn off shipping to the EU completely on December 13th.

If we do, we hope it won't be for long, but if we can't find an economical way to maintain an agent in the EU, it may be forever. So... get it while you can, and while the shipping is cheap?

FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING on select items, this weekend only!

In cooperation with one of our most popular suppliers, we're able to offer worldwide shipping for free on the "Free Domestic Shipping" collection. And yes, this COMBINES with the Bottoms and Tops sale for eligible items!

f r e e e e e e e shipping on this whole category, to the entire world, until 12/2/2024, 11:59 PM. :]

[waebabre]

Feline

Embrace the feline style – 100% carded cotton Age restrictions: For adults EU Warranty: 2 years Other compliance information: Meets the lead, phthalates and flammability level requirements. In compliance with the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), Waebabre Clothing and SINDEN VENTURES LIMITED ensure that all consumer products offered are safe and meet EU standards. For any product safety…