Implementing the Consumer Contracts Regulations
We look at how the UK's internet's giants shape up
Friday, 13 June 2014 saw a new EU Consumer Directive come into force in the UK. The Consumer Contracts Regulations replace the Distance Selling regulations 2000 and ‘doorstep’ selling regulations from 2008. The Regulations have been welcomed by consumer rights organisations such as Which? who see them as offering welcome extra protection for those buying goods and services online.
Doing the right thing
As a web design agency with a large number of clients running ecommerce websites, we need to ensure that our clients’ websites comply with regulations such as these. (Take a look at our original blog post on the issue).
We want to do the right thing but sometimes deciding what the right thing isn’t so clear. As with all laws, there is an element of interpretation as to how to comply with them. In making changes to our clients’ websites it’s a balancing act - we don’t want them to fall foul of the law but equally we don’t want to implement changes in a way that adversely impacts on a user’s experience.
In order to guide our actions, we thought it would be useful to look at how some of the UK’s largest ecomms players (internet Goliaths like ebay, Amazon, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer etc) are responding to the Regulations. We reckon that they have the resources to pay whatever is the collective noun for lawyers (clean suggestions only on a postcard please) to sit in a room and pour over the Regulations and work out how best to comply but without affecting sales.
So how have these internet behemoths responded?
In a series of articles to be released over the next week or so we will be looking at the various parts of the new Regulations and seeing how the likes of Amazon, Marks and Spencer etc have interpreted them. We will look at changes to the 'pay button' and the information that websites need to provide to customers prior to sale. However first up we look at some of the UK's most visited websites deal with consumers' strengthened rights to cancel.
