Selling Physical Products to the E.U. is About to Get a Lot Harder

This article first ran in Craft Industry Insider, our monthly newsletter for corporations and larger businesses in the crafts industry.

Remember GDPR? The wide-sweeping privacy regulation that the European Union enacted in 2018 applies to any company that does business with customers in the E.U. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been to Europe or if you couldn’t even find it on the map — if someone in the E.U. is engaging with your company, you have to follow the law of the GDPR.

I hope you’re ready for the next round. The E.U.’s General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), which comes into effect on Dec. 13, sets out updated safety requirements for all non-food consumer products and requires companies outside Europe to identify a “responsible person” within the E.U.

The goal is to “protect consumers from unsafe products.” The actual effect will be to cut off the E.U. market from many imports.

The GPSR applies to all products offered for sale in the E.U., with the exception of already regulated products such as food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. There’s no minimum company size or sales threshold, though there is an exemption for antiques — but not vintage items. Non-compliance can lead to fines and product bans, and random checks will be implemented.

The U.S. Commerce Department writes: “U.S. companies exporting to the EU must take a proactive approach in identifying risks associated with their products. The regulation mandates that products undergo a risk assessment considering foreseeable use, misuse, and potential hazards. … Exporters must also ensure that safety information and warnings are clear and provided in the languages of the E.U. Member States where the products will be sold.”

Impact on the Crafts Industry

Katy Westcott, who runs crafting supply company Katrinkles, brought the issue to our attention in the Craft Industry Alliance Facebook group. She had received a spam email selling E.U. “responsible person” services and realized there was a truth behind the sales pitch. Companies of any size will need to have an E.U.-based representative responsible for product safety compliance as of Dec. 13. In reaching out to U.S. trade organizations, it became clear the GPSR will be an issue for anyone selling to the E.U.

“I don’t want to be selling unsafe products, and I’m confident that I am not selling unsafe products, but the definition of ‘unsafe’ is subjective,” Westcott says. She tried to find answers with the Commerce Department, but no one knows what to do yet. “They also admitted this regulation is going into effect directly because of unsafe cheap Asian imports.”

To comply with GPSR from Dec. 13, 2024, every product — whether sold online or in-store — needs to have:

• The product manufacturer’s name and contact information
• If the manufacturer isn’t located in the E.U., the contact details for an E.U.-based Responsible Person or entity
• Product information such as photos and item number/SKU
• Any needed product safety warnings or manuals in the local language

IT-Recht, a German legal advisory, wrote a guide specifically for small sellers of handmade things. The E.U. is requiring marketplace operators such as Etsy and eBay to provide appropriate interfaces for platform sellers to include the mandatory GPSR information on their products.

Unresolved Questions

There are so many unresolved questions here — are we operating on an “everything can be dangerous” level where we need to explain that a quilled paper kit is flammable? Or will there be an allowance for common sense?

The E.U. still hasn’t issued its formal recommendations. Those are likely to come around the date of enforcement. From the many unanswered questions in seller forums, it seems that big marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy are still figuring out what to recommend.

The good news is that the GPSR applies only to products first offered from Dec. 13, 2024, onward — products already listed for sale before that date are grandfathered in. It’s also worth noting that most of the United Kingdom is not included in the GPSR, but Northern Ireland is, as it has sided with E.U. member Ireland.

It all reminds me of yet another E.U. legislative ordeal. Back in 2014, the E.U. announced value-added tax would have to be collected and remitted for sales of digital products to consumers in Europe starting in 2015, no matter where the seller’s tax home was. Some sellers just decided to stop serving E.U. customers. In the end, Etsy stepped in, collecting and remitting VAT on behalf of sellers of digital items to E.U. residents.

With the GPSR’s “E.U. responsible person” requirement, I think it’s unlikely that Etsy and eBay will agree to take on that legal liability. Various companies are offering this service for a price, from $100 per year to thousands per month. But attempting compliance is going to be at a big cost for smaller companies.

“I have spent so much time in the past three years trying to gain back the European business that I lost due to VAT, and it feels like this puts me back at square one,” Westcott says. “At least with VAT, I could still sell to stockists in Europe, and I could sell retail via an Etsy shop. Now I will not be able to sell to the E.U. at all.”

My hope is that the E.U. recommendations, whenever they arrive, include exemptions or common-sense advice for small-time sellers. Otherwise, the European market is going to get a lot less attractive.