The Consumer Protection (Amendment) Regulations 2014

[Batestfastard]

Hi Guys,

I'm not completely convinced that this is the correct section to post this thread but I really couldn't spot a better one.

To the best of my knowledge, the new version of the EU Distance Seller Directive comes into force on 13 June 2014 as "The Consumer Protection (Amendment) Regulations 2014" (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2.../contents/made) and aside from a general tightening up of the online selling process T&Cs there is really only one area that is causing me concern.

Trader must tell consumer if consumer is to bear the cost of any return. If such information has not been provided, the trader must bear the cost of the return.

and

More prescriptive information on withdrawal rights, including on timing and costs. For instance, where the trader does not agree to bear the cost of return delivery, they must specify the estimated cost of return delivery to the consumer


After visiting several different web pages, my understanding is that this "estimated cost of return" must form part of the checkout process so that the consumer is allowed to make a fully informed decision whether to enter into a purchase agreement. So, if my understanding is correct, the customer selects a basket full of items and during the checkout process you have to display an estimate of how much it might cost them to return the goods, should they change their mind during the 14 day cooling off period.

My question is this, assuming that I have not grabbed the wrong end of the stick, has anyone considered how this might be implemented into the Sellerdeck checkout process?

Displaying it so that the customer has to acknowledge it before paying is one thing but then having it be reiterated to part of the telesales and email order confirmation process is another.

Of course we can just accept that we will have to bear the return cost of goods in all circumstances but it gets painful when you are scraping the sides of the tin for all available profit margin.

I do hope that I am misunderstanding all of this and that I am working myself up over nothing.

Ian

[Mike Hughes]

I suppose it depends on what you're selling, but presumably you could display a table of typical return charges based on weight. i.e. if it's large heavy items, show a table of Parcelforce delivery charges.

Mike

PS. At a guess, I'd say this is probably best in the 'any other business' section

[chris ashdown]

I guess we will all have to follow the bigger players like Amazon, John Lewis, Next etc and see what they do but for sure if we tell someone it will cost £6.00 to post back a couple of overalls then we have already lost the sale and only other option is to pay and put prices up quite a bit

[EdHarrison]

It does seem very unclear, I hope there is a compromise such as the terms check box, if the information that legally has to be provided is in the terms and the customer ticks they have read and accept that "should" be enough - after all the checkout is cluttered enough!

[Batestfastard]

It does seem very unclear, I hope there is a compromise such as the terms check box, if the information that legally has to be provided is in the terms and the customer ticks they have read and accept that "should" be enough - after all the checkout is cluttered enough!

Hi Ed, I agree, it remains very unclear which is why I came here.

Again, assuming my understanding of the process is correct, even if an estimate or carriage cost table can be consigned to the T&C section, requiring an acknowledgment tick during online checkout, it still makes the telesales and order confirmation documentation awkward. (It's all very well claiming that you provide this estimate to the customer during a telesales call but another thing making sure that all of your order documentation shows the same estimate.)

We will amend our T&C's to reflect the obvious changes and see what shakes loose as far as the provision of return postage information. We have historically avoided the work involved in setting up a postage charge matrix for our products, but this requirement may eventually force our hand.

A big thank-you to Chris, Mike & Ed for taking the time to reply!

Ian

[Mike Hughes]

for sure if we tell someone it will cost £6.00 to post back a couple of overalls then we have already lost the sale

Do you think so Chris? I wonder if customers are actually quite realistic and realise that if they order the wrong thing they're going to need to pay to return them.

As a note: Amazon now ask the reason for any returns and the customer has to pay if it's not the retailers fault.

I suspect it might be best to 'introduce' the idea to them at an early stage so they don't get scared off by an unexpected announcement at the checkout. Something along the lines of 'Please check our sizing chart before ordering to avoid the cost of returning items for exchange' sounds reasonable and not too scary. Once they've accepted that it's far less likely that they'll back out later.

On the whole though, I'd put the details in the terms and conditions along with everything else. I don't see it being any more special than the rest of the return terms.

In the end most customers know what it costs to send things through the post. I suspect this is mostly a problem for people buying very large things like furniture where they don't realise how expensive it would be return a bed for example and are going to be at the hands of the retailer who could almost charge what they want to.