When you buy something from a webshop outside the European Union, you run greater risks than with a shop that does operate within the EU. How do you find out exactly where the company behind the sales site is? The Consumers’ Association and the European Consumer Center answer.
Many products purchased outside the EU are of poor quality, according to a recent survey by the Consumers’ Association and five other European consumer organisations. The researchers ordered 250 items via web platforms such as AliExpress, Wish, Amazon, Light in the Box and eBay. It concerned children’s products, jewellery, cosmetics and electronics, and they mainly looked at health or safety risks. They concluded that no fewer than 66% products should not be in the store here. Something turned out to be wrong with 165 of those products. Moreover, the supervision of such shops and trading platforms is very difficult.
How do you know if you are dealing with an online store that is not based in the EU? That is quite difficult, because many such websites have a variant that is specifically aimed at the local market of the visitor. The popular AliExpress platform now has a fully Dutch version with Dutch texts.
Martijn Witvliet, lawyer at the European Consumer Center, mentions four points for attention:
1. Find out where the head office is located. This information can be found in the general terms and conditions. Shops that focus on the European market are legally obliged to state in the general terms and conditions where the head office is located.
2. Never order via social media. Only order something if you can consult the entire website!
3. Always check the payment methods. If you can pay by credit card or via PayPal, this is no guarantee that the webshop is located in the EU, but it does offer a certain purchase protection. If there is no delivery, you can invoke the purchase insurance of your credit card company. If the product is of poor quality, you can often open a dispute via PayPal. If webshops accept such parties for the payment method, they are usually legitimate.
Important: you do NOT enjoy this type of protection for transactions via iDEAL. Credit card and PayPal is really wiser.
4. Read the texts on the website critically. Sometimes it’s Google Translate-like translations of websites. Spelling and language problems and illogical sentence constructions are common. That indicates that the site is probably run outside the EU.
Which countries are in the EU?
At the time of writing (March 2020, so a month after Brexit) there are 27 countries in the EU.
These are, in alphabetical order: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania , Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Czech Republic and Sweden.
You can check whether this list is still up to date on the website of the Tax Authorities >>
