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What is GPSR and What Does it Mean for my eCommerce Website?

The new General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) have snuck up on all of us. Although we had a few months notice of these new safety standards, the vague nature of them left us all a bit unsure how to proceed and waiting to take action in hopes that more concrete direction would be provided closer to launch date.


As it’s now a week after these new safety regulations rolled out - and it seems we won’t be getting clarifying information anytime soon - we’ve put our heads down here at Sharp Media to sort through all the legislation, information, discussions, threads and more around GPSR. So we do all the ground work mining through the confusing & lengthy information, community discussions, and Shopify Partner platforms to bring you some clarification to all the noise around the new GPSR regulations. So check it out below - all you need to know around the new GPSR legislation, how it impacts your ecommerce website, and what steps to take now to move your site closer to compliance.


** Please note we are not solicitors and are not able to provide legal advice. The information we have outlined in this email is common knowledge taken from the new GPSR legislation, but we are in no way providing legal advice. If you desire legal advice on this topic, please contact a solicitor.


What is GPSR? 


The General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) is a set of safety standards established by the European Union (EU) to ensure the safety of products sold across the EU. As of December 13th, GPSR replaces the previous General Product Safety Directive but introduces more rigorous safety protocols and stricter enforcement measures. Under the GPSR, businesses must identify potential risks associated with their products, implement risk reduction strategies, provide clear safety instructions, and maintain documentation to prove compliance. Non compliance could lead to consequences such as fines and product listing violations on partner platforms.


What are the Key GPSR Requirements?


1) Responsible Person

One major change introduced by GPSR is the need to appoint a Responsible Person (Authorised Representative) within the EU. This person or entity will ensure that the product complies with GPSR and their contact details must appear on the product.


2) Manufacturer Information

Products must clearly display the manufacturer’s information, including their name and contact details. If an importer is involved, their information must also be visible, both on the product itself and in the product's online listing.


3) Labelling and Traceability

Proper labelling and traceability are key components of GPSR compliance. Each product must have a unique identifier and carry any necessary safety warnings or instructions, ensuring that it can be traced back to its origin in case of issues.


What Do I Need to Do?

& How Do I Update my Website to be GPSR Compliant?


  1. Confirm with your suppliers that they are GPSR compliant

  2. Ask your suppliers for the EU responsible person / point of contact for GPSR. Name & contact details required for each supplier.

  3. Ask suppliers if there are any safety warning or instructions for any of their products. If so, obtain these safety warning and/or instructions from your suppliers for each relevant product

  4. Ask your supplier is an importer is involved. If so, obtain their information (importer nam.e and contact details) as this must also be visible on the product listings.

  5. If you have not already, make sure you are inputting gtin and/or mpn (unique identifiers) for all of your products as this is now required to display on your product listings.

  6. On each product page, display the following information:

    1. Supplier name & contact details

    2. Product Safety warnings / instructions 

    3. Importer name & contact details (if importer is involved in the supply chain of the product)

    4. Product unique identifier (gtin and/or mpn)


Here’s How We Can Help…


We know this new GPSR regulation has come as a shock for many businesses and we are here to help make this compliance process as easy as possible for you. Updating each and every one of your product listings with this newly required information is incredibly time consuming so here’s how we can help with this process:


  1. Create custom sections on your product page where this information is displayed.

We design and insert sections on your product page that display the required GPSR compliance information. We design this with best UX practices in mind and also display on your product page below the fold and below other important information so it doesn’t affect your conversion rates.


  1. Bulk Input GPSR Required Supplier information & Assign to products within your product catalogue

Instead of manually adding these to each product, which is incredibly time consuming - we create custom products metafields for compliance information and bulk input this information for each supplier. This saves you an incredible amount of time and the headache of not knowing how best to do this.


If you have further questions about the new GPSR regulations, how to make sure your store is compliant, or how to quickly roll out compliance across your site - get in touch with us today!

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