Quarterly BAS Due (July–September)
Form 1099-NEC & Contractor Payment Reporting Check
Why this matters.
The EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) has applied since 13 December 2024 and affects any UK online seller shipping physical products to consumers in the EU or Northern Ireland — including businesses selling through their own website, Etsy, Amazon or eBay. GPSR requires products to display a “responsible person” established in the EU or NI (a manufacturer’s EU representative, importer, or fulfilment provider) whose name and contact details are visible to the consumer before purchase, alongside a trader’s own name, address and contact details, and product identifiers such as model or batch numbers. Online marketplaces must also carry out spot checks and remove listings that don’t display the required information, meaning UK sellers who haven’t updated their listings risk having products delisted without warning, quite separately from any regulatory enforcement.
Many small UK e-commerce businesses assume Brexit removed any obligation to follow EU product rules, but GPSR applies to the destination market of the product, not the seller’s own location — a UK-based seller shipping a candle, toy, or electrical item to a customer in France or Germany (or into Northern Ireland, which follows EU product rules under the Windsor Framework) falls within scope regardless of where the business itself is registered. The regulation also introduces new obligations around serious risk reporting, mandatory accident reporting via the EU Safety Business Gateway, and clearer safety and usage instructions, replacing the previous General Product Safety Directive with materially stronger and more specific requirements.
