Legal certainty for online trading on Amazon is an important part of protecting yourself from annoying warnings. The legal information on Amazon is therefore essential for retailers who sell their goods via their own Amazon shop. This blog post explains the basic steps, how to insert the individual legal notices, such as terms and conditions, cancellation policy, legal notice, privacy policy and shipping costs, what to consider and what paid and free tools are available with templates for legal texts. It should also be noted that the information provided is not subject to any official legal advice and therefore does not guarantee protection against warnings.
What do the legal notices on Amazon mean?
Legal notices on Amazon are legally required information that every online retailer on Amazon is obliged to provide. Online retailers who operate a shop on Amazon must fulfil a large number of legal information obligations towards consumers, which can be included as part of the general terms and conditions, for example. The obligations apply to both Seller Central merchants and Vendor Central merchants. It is mandatory to provide an imprint (legal provider identification), a cancellation policy and the data protection provisions. It is not sufficient to refer to the information provided by Amazon. This mandatory information must be provided in text form. In order to avoid legal consequences, this information should therefore always be up-to-date and correctly written down.
What are legal notices on Amazon needed for?
As trading on the Amazon Marketplace has many legal pitfalls, it is essential to use legal texts that are protected against warnings. Terms and conditions are not a must for sellers. Nevertheless, it is advisable to store your own legal texts, as this allows you to cover the statutory information obligations. This includes information on payment options and warranty periods. The essential information obligations that the retailer has to fulfil towards the consumer also include information on the right of withdrawal. If the information is incorrect or not included at all, the cancellation period is extended by 12 months. The consumer therefore has a long period in which to withdraw from the purchase contract, which would result in an enormous loss of sales for the retailer. It is important that clear and detailed information on the policy is provided so that customers build trust in the company. The return policy for buyers must therefore be just as favourable as Amazon’s return policy. The terms and conditions for shipping and returns should be provided so that customers build trust in the company. Shipping rates should also be specified so that customers know what the shipping costs are.
Where can I find the legal information on Amazon?
To set the legal information in the Amazon Marketplace, click on ‘Settings’ in the top right-hand tab and then on ‘Your information and guidelines’. The individual menu items for setting the legal texts can be found under the ‘Your information and guidelines’ tab.
How are the legal notices inserted on Amazon?
To edit the individual menu items, simply click on the relevant tab, e.g. ‘Imprint & seller info’.
Insert legal notice on Amazon
Clicking on ‘legal notice & seller information’ redirects you to a form that prompts you to enter the seller information in the help content. The reference to the ODR platform is important here. To ensure that the legally required reference to the dispute resolution platform of the European Commission (so-called ‘ODR platform’) is correctly displayed in the legal notice, it is necessary to activate the function provided by Amazon under ‘Legal notice & seller information’. To be on the safe side (as shown in the screenshot), both checkboxes should be ticked in the designated queries for online dispute resolution and the settings should then be saved. The OS link will now be actively accessible and visually recognisable as a hyperlink and automatically displayed in the legal notice.
Insert privacy policy on Amazon
In the ‘Privacy Policy’ section, you will be asked to enter your own information as a seller in the help content on data protection.
Insert right of cancellation with Amazon
After clicking on ‘Right of cancellation’, the information on the cancellation policy can be entered as the seller in the text field. The cancellation policy including the sample cancellation form and voluntary return guarantee are inserted here. It is also recommended to explain the other return conditions under the cancellation policy.
Insert customised help page at Amazon
As Amazon’s legal text fields are limited by a character limit, legal texts that are too long, such as terms and conditions that are too long, can be split into two individual pages under the ‘Custom help pages’ option.
Secured legal texts
If you want to play it safe and don’t want to hire a lawyer for your legal texts, you can take out a subscription with Händlerbund*, which provides all the necessary legal texts for the sale of goods via the Amazon Marketplace internet platform. This includes the legal notice, the cancellation policy including a sample cancellation form (including a voluntary return guarantee), the general terms and conditions and customer information, the privacy policy and the shipping conditions. The Händlerbund membership packages are tailored to the respective needs of online retailers. From the small retailer to the established big players.
Free templates for legal texts on Amazon
There are also legally compliant texts that are free and easy to create. Trusted Shops GmbH* provides a tool to create legally compliant terms and conditions, legal notice, privacy policy and cancellation policy for your own Amazon presence in Germany free of charge. A tool that provides all legal texts adapted to the online presence on Amazon. According to the provider, the legal texts are always up to date.
Conclusion
Legal certainty on Amazon is one of the most important steps to protect yourself as a retailer from a warning and should ideally be created before the first item is visible. One thing is certain: in the short or long term, you will be warned without the legal information on Amazon, which usually entails a high penalty. If you want to be on the safe side, you can take out a subscription with Händlerbund, for example, and have warning-protected legal texts created for your own e-commerce business. In the event of a legal dispute, this subscription guarantees protection against warnings or the assumption of liability as well as free updates.
*MISSION OM receives a commission when an order is placed via this affiliate link.
