The Canada-based e-commerce retail website, Shopify, committed on Friday to bring about the required changes in its system to ensure a safe shopping experience for its consumers across the globe.
This was the result of an investigation opened in July 2021, collectively, by Belgium’s Directorate General for Economic Inspection, the European Commission, and the network of national consumer protection (CPC) authorities.
(A network of authorities responsible for the enforcement of EU consumer protection laws, the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) works to tackle issues that go beyond borderlines and then take actions in line with the EU laws.)
The investigation led to open dialogue with Shopify and together with the CPC and the European Commission the decision of aligning Shopify’s safety rules with EU laws was made.
The changes ensure that Shopify is devoted to keeping its platform free of unlawful practices of traders.
To do so the e-commerce website is committed to carrying out a ‘notice and action procedure for the national consumer authorities which will not just be fast but also highly effective.
Shopify will also alter its templates to ensure transparency, from traders to consumers.
What Caused this Need for Consumer Safety on Shopify?
The European Consumer Centres received several complaints from consumers against Shopify which peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic and caused the Commission to be concerned about the safety of consumers.
These complaints were mainly regarding web stores hosted by Shopify and how several of them were engaged in illegal practices.
Consumers were being given fake offers and deceived into thinking products were scarce. Some traders were also found to be supplying counterfeit goods and not providing their contact details.
“Almost 75% of internet users in the EU are shopping online. This is a huge market for scammers and rogue traders to exploit, and they will continue to do so unless we act,” Didier Reynders, the Commissioner for Justice commented on Shopify’s commitment towards consumer protection.
He further added, “We welcome Shopify’s commitment to ensure that traders operating on its platform are aware of their responsibilities under EU law, and are taken down if they break the rules.”
What are the Key Commitments that Shopify Made to Ensure Consumer Safety?
- Redesigning of its templates: To ensure transparency, the listed web shops are now required to provide accurate company information and contact details in their contact pages and generators for Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policies, and Refund Policies.
- Ensuring traders are well informed of the applicable EU consumer law and that there is no room for loopholes.
- Providing company details about any EU trader promptly when required by any national consumer authority.
In the event of a breach of any of the EU consumer laws by the listed webshops, Shopify has promised to immediately take down such traders from their website and at the same time submit their company details to the national consumer authorities.
These breaches range from fake scarcity claims to counterfeit goods to pressure selling to even undelivered products.
The national consumer authorities will be notifying Shopify of all such breaches regularly and would expect the required action to be taken.
This is not the first time the EU-CPC has taken proactive steps against companies that receive a lot of complaints.
Recently TikTok was asked to revise its commitment to transparency when it comes to ad disclosure after receiving a series of complaints about the same.
Amazon was also recently scrutinized by the EU consumer protection regulators and was forced to ditch Prime cancellation dark patterns after the CPC intervened in the issue.
