A Big Thanks To Ryan Air and the likes

[Darren B]

Well having read this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-euro...medium=twitter you can see why all this has come about, but as usual those trying to make an honest £ are going to have even more legislation to deal with and as always a handfull of those customers who deliberately use the law in ways it was not intended are going to cause you grief.

The big question is, who is going to police this anyway i doubt no one else in the eu will, except the UK as we always seem to be the ones doing what we are told. Dare i mention fishing quotas

[completerookie]

on some of our wheelchairs, we offer "Free this" and "free that", these are of course optional, and they are pre-ticked but coming out on the orders reminds us that we must include them within the order.

looks as though these will be banned, but I wonder just how many of the "little boys" are going to bother - I probably won't and then I'll plead ignorance when they take me to court for the free items they didn't want

I also note the cooling off period will be doubled to 14 days
another nail?

[Mike Hughes]

Does this really change much? It reads to me as if the key thing is that customers must be properly informed about costs and explicitly make the decision to purchase any extras.

The net result is that websites cannot pre-check boxes that add extra cost to an order.

Is this going to cause anyone here a problem?

Mike

[Darren B]

The net result is that websites cannot pre-check boxes that add extra cost to an order.

Is this going to cause anyone here a problem?

Mike

in some areas for me it will, we offer many products that might require extra parts (end caps) we pre tick these boxes as most forget and then we either have to ring every customer that forgets to check or wait to for them to ring up moaning after we have delivered their order. We dont hide this and the charges are clearly displayed in the shopping basket.

Since we introduced this it has helped, we all know customer never read whats infront of them. 90% of people want them 5% dont and the other 5% want twice as many so we cant just include it with the part. Well we could but then we take the choice away from the customer and its something we pride ourselves in. If you break a piece of the plastic cap we will sell you just the cap you dont need to buy the whole glazing bar.

So the net result is some poor bugger could end up paying for parts they dont want, or we to spend time calling customers and putting orders on hold until we can confirm these details so slowing down the process.

I doubt we will change anything either, but its another piece of legislation not thought through

[JGLIGHTING]

Not good as far I can see.

Letting people having a 14 day cooling off period!!!

[Mike Hughes]

OK. I can see how this will make you change the way your site works. Probably for the better though as pre-ticking optional extras doesn't feel to me like a good solution anyway.

Presumably the solution in your case would be some kind of javascript that checks when they click the add to cart button and says something along the lines of "We notice you didn't add any X for your Y. Click 'close' to change this or 'continue' to leave order as is."

Mike

PS. 14 cooling off period. Don't we all offer 30 money back guarantees? I seem to remember that the numbers show that the longer you give people to return an item (or cancel an order) the fewer people get around to doing it.

[Darren B]

Mike im not sure what business your in but i would happily work this model if all i sold was stuff i can post or carrier.

Running one of my trucks costs me around £300 a day when you add the costs for wages, insurance, 6 week checks, diesel e.t.c

A normal scotland run for me costs around £800 in just diesel.

So tell me how i cover the costs when i deliver a roof to Aberdeen for £60 and two weeks later the customer tells me that they do not like it? I am expected to go and collect it, which normally results in a problem from the outset as no one seems to think they need to look after it. Yet customers still expect a refund even though they would never expect to recieve the items in the condition they return it.

As i said this is yet more legislation not thought through, sure its great for box packers and their customer all over europe. Sometimes one size does not fit all

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Darren. Yeah. I know. I do send stuff by Royal Mail and my typical delivery cost is more like £2 so my viewpoint is very different from yours. I did realise when reading back my post that I shouldn't really be telling other people what would be best for them. Sorry about that.

I don't know how you manage in your business. It would drive me up the wall.

Mike

[Darren B]

Mike i was not having a go, its just most internet based shopping is via post or carrier and sometimes people who make these rules forget to consult a broader spectrum.

I guess we could say everything is a special order item, although we might not get away with that

Darren

[Duncan Rounding]

As usual I think most European counties will just carry on regardless and not worry about the new EU rules. It often seems to me that in the UK we follow and worry about EU rules far too much.

Business as usual as far as I'm concerned. When and if it ever becomes a binding in law in the UK I'll think about how to accommodate it - much like the cookie 'rules' not long ago.

[chris ashdown]

we have offered the 14 days rule since we started and doubt it really makes much difference, the few who return under DRS are thankfully few & far between

[completerookie]

I asked around here, returning items under the distance selling regs amounted to five items in the last two years (I like that sort of return rate )

I think Ive quoted the DSR regs to get my money back more than these five times.

so, DSR and 14 days, hmmm not sure its going to make any difference to us either

kev

[JGLIGHTING]

we have offered the 14 days rule since we started and doubt it really makes much difference, the few who return under DRS are thankfully few & far between

It not good for us, as we only stock about 10% that is on our site. Any product some order that we have to order in, we cannot send it back to our supplier.

Are products range from £10 to £6000. So if some one order a product that cost £4000 we are stuck with it!!!!

[TraceyHand]

It not good for us, as we only stock about 10% that is on our site. Any product some order that we have to order in, we cannot send it back to our supplier.

So if some one order a product that cost £xxx we are stuck with it!!!!

Ditto
Although we probably only stock less than 5% of our range!

We do end up with returns stock that we are stuck with but hey, what can ya do?!

[mje]

I am an old school retailer - 30 years plus.

We stock 100% of what we offer for sale, so can also offer next working day delivery, if required.

In our sector we are more expensive than many of our new internet only competitors, many of whom work from a shed during the evening after a day of full time employment elsewhere, and draw stock from wholesalers when it is sold, or have some agreement in place to ship direct from wholesale / manufacturer when an order is placed.

The Internet, e-commerce can make you look as big as you want, but in our sector price is not always king - service is.

These consumer weighted regulations are a complete and utter pain, and there will always be those that seek to "take the wotsit" - but what can you do? ... the regulation are here to stay and will no doubt only get more restrictive, do you factor into your pricing the chance that at some point the business will take a hit with a hefty return?.......should do, but probably won't.