The General Product Safety Regulation, also known as GPSR, has tightened the requirements for product safety. For businesses that sell, import or market products under their own brand, this means above all more mandatory information with the product, a clear point of contact within the EU and tighter agreements about what happens when a recall is issued. Which specific parts apply to your business depends on your role in the chain: manufacturer, importer, distributor or party selling under its own brand.
This does not only affect large manufacturers. A web shop that has products made under its own brand, an importer that purchases goods from outside the EU, and a seller offering via an online marketplace can all fall under one of these roles — sometimes even under several at once. The exact obligations and the precise date of application can be found in the official regulation; that text, and the guidance from the competent authority, are the place to check this for your situation.
What has changed in substance
The core of the change lies in three parts. First, it must be made clearer with a product who is responsible: name and contact details of the manufacturer or importer must appear on the product or packaging. Second, there are stricter requirements for warnings and instructions for use, particularly in the language of the country where the product is sold. Third, there is more focus on what happens if a product does turn out to have a safety risk: how a recall is organised and how customers are informed about it.
For online sales, a fourth element is added to this: platforms on which products are offered get a larger role in checking that information before an offer becomes visible. This indirectly also affects the seller, because missing information can hold up an offer even before there has been a complaint.
For whom this changes most
The biggest impact is on businesses that sell a product under their own name or brand, even if production takes place elsewhere. In that case you often count as a manufacturer or importer, with the corresponding obligations, even if you did not design the product yourself. The same applies to businesses that purchase products from countries outside the EU and are the first to place them on the European market.
Businesses that exclusively resell products from a well-known European brand, without changing anything about them, generally have a more limited role. Where exactly the line lies between these roles, and what that means in practice for your business, is something to discuss with a lawyer or the competent authority — that is a bespoke matter that falls outside the scope of this article.
Why this often coincides with other obligations
A business that sells own-brand products rarely encounters just one regulation. Product safety quickly touches on packaging requirements, accessibility rules if the product has digital functions, and the handling of customer data when registering a warranty, for example. That is precisely why these obligations are often kept track of separately, while in practice they concern the same products and the same business data. An overview of which platforms focus on which aspect helps you to see exactly where your business is affected; you can see which platforms there are and what each of them covers.
How to keep track of this without having to work it out all yourself
The substantive question of whether and how the product safety regulation applies to your products is answered by the platform that focuses on it, not by reglia itself. reglia does ensure that the data you need for this — your business data, your product information — does not have to be entered again at each platform. How exactly that works and what does and does not happen with your data, you can read on the page about what reglia does and does not do with your data.
For those wondering whether an obligation already applies or is yet to come into effect: the official regulation and the guidance from the supervisory authority are authoritative, not a summary on any website. If your question is not answered there, you may find a starting point on the page with answers to frequently asked questions if not, a lawyer or the supervisory authority is the appropriate party to contact.
Would you like to see which platforms are available and which subject they cover exactly, before you choose one? An overview is ready for you, without you needing an account right away.