Have you heard about the new GPSR requirements for EU sellers? Very soon, sellers are advised to add key manufacturer details to avoid possible product deactivation; marketplaces are providing these requirements and informing about this. Otto’s new “productSafety” field makes it simple, and M2E Otto Connect streamlines compliance, automating listings and inventory sync. Let’s check on this blog how this is going to work.
Otto Updates About the GPSR Requirements
The new EU General Product Safety Regulation kicks in on December 13, 2024! This means all Otto sellers must include key details—like the manufacturer’s name, address, and email—for every product. Products missing this information will be temporarily deactivated until the required details are provided.
To make things easier, Otto marketplace introduced a new feature in the product data: the “productSafety” container. It lets sellers submit essential manufacturer or importer information, including name, address, email, and phone. While it’s optional now, this container will become mandatory in Products V4 (except for the phone, which will stay optional).
By the way, you can learn more about the GPSR requirements in our previous blog.
GPSR Requirements: 3 Key Directions
The GPSR outlines three key areas to ensure product safety and accountability across the EU market.
#1: Advanced Protection for Customers
The EU ensures non-food product safety with strict regulations, covering risks, updates, and recalls, while protecting consumers online and in-store. Businesses must take precautions and improve communication on safety issues.
- Ensuring Safety for Non-Food Products: EU consumers are protected from dangerous products, including future risks not covered by other regulations.
- Applying the Precautionary Principle: Businesses should take precautionary measures when evidence suggests high risks, even if health hazards are uncertain.
- Addressing Technological Challenges: Products must remain safe throughout their lifespan, including after software updates.
- Equal Protection for Online Shoppers: Consumers enjoy the same safety standards when shopping online or in-store, with specific safety rules for online marketplace providers.
- Strengthening Consumer Protection for Non-EU Products: Requiring an EU-based responsible person with product safety duties to contact consumers and market surveillance authorities.
- Enhancing Product Recalls: Mandating direct contact and standardized recall notices, ensuring consumers receive timely, cost-free remedies for returned dangerous products.
- Increasing Consumer Involvement in Product Safety: Improving communication channels between consumers, businesses, national authorities, and the European Commission to better handle product safety complaints and accident reporting.
- Addressing Vulnerable Consumers’ Safety: Focusing on the safety of products that imitate food or appeal to children, considering their unique vulnerabilities.
#2: More Equitable Conditions for Businesses
The EU strengthens supply chain accountability, providing clearer safety rules and better enforcement to protect businesses. It also supports SMEs with practical guidelines and streamlines communication through the EU Safety Business Gateway.
- Strengthening Supply Chain Responsibilities: Ensuring equal conditions for all businesses operating in the EU by enhancing accountability across the supply chain.
- Providing Legal Certainty: Offering clearer and more consistent product safety rules through regulation, giving businesses greater legal clarity.
- Enhancing Enforcement and Market Surveillance: Protecting responsible companies from rogue traders by improving the enforcement of product safety rules and market oversight.
- Streamlining Business-Authority Communication: Promoting the use of the EU Safety Business Gateway for efficient communication between businesses and authorities.
- Supporting SMEs: Helping businesses, especially SMEs, comply with safety rules by providing practical, hands-on guidelines.
#3: Improved Enforcement
The GPSR empowers authorities with stronger enforcement tools, such as undercover shopping and website blocking, while ensuring all products have an EU-based operator for effective corrective actions. It also introduces severe penalties and enhances the Safety Gate system for faster alerts on dangerous products.
- Enhancing Enforcement Powers for National Authorities: The GPSR equips authorities with tools for market surveillance, allowing them to take stronger actions, such as undercover shopping or blocking websites offering dangerous products.
- Tackling Dangerous Products from Outside the EU: The GPSR requires all products to have an EU-based responsible economic operator, enabling effective corrective actions regardless of product origin. This combats rogue traders and ensures fair competition, as 67% of 2022 Safety Gate notifications involved non-EU products.
- Introducing Deterrent Penalties: Penalties under GPSR are designed to be severe enough to discourage businesses from ignoring product safety obligations.
- Improving the Safety Gate System: The GPSR strengthens the EU’s rapid alert system, Safety Gate, for quicker and more efficient information sharing about dangerous products across the EU.
How Can M2E Otto Connect Help?
M2E Otto Connect allows users to fill in mandatory fields as category attributes that are already accessible to them. What else can you do?
- Access OTTO’s 11 Million Customers: Expand your reach by linking your Magento store to OTTO via M2E.
- Easy Product Listing: M2E’s OTTO integration makes listing on otto.de effortless, helping you quickly showcase your Magento products on the OTTO marketplace.
- Automate Fulfillment: Automate OTTO order fulfillment with M2E, streamlining purchases and inventory updates while reducing errors and saving time for growth.
- Real-Time Sync: OTTO and Magento sync inventory, pricing, and availability for a seamless experience, saving time and effort.
Summary
With the upcoming GPSR requirements, staying compliant with Otto is no longer a headache. M2E Otto Connect takes the stress out of managing product listings by automating essential details and keeping your inventory synced. Effortlessly expand your reach, protect your business, and stay ahead of the curve—compliance has never been this easy!
