Distance selling and e-commerce

Distance selling can be far more cost-effective than selling face-to-face. Phone marketing, email marketing and mail order catalogues are all options. For many businesses, distance selling these days means e-commerce — selling online through your website.

What is distance selling?

If your business sells to individual consumers without meeting face-to-face, you must comply with the Distance Selling Regulations.

You have to give customers specific ‘prior information’ before a sale is made to help them decide whether to buy. And if they decide to buy, you also have to supply specific details in an order confirmation, provided in a durable form — for example, in writing.

Customers usually have an automatic right to cancel an order during a specified cooling-off period. For your part, you must normally fulfil your contractual obligations within 30 days unless you and your customer agree otherwise.

Selling from your website

If you use Internet marketing to sell from your website, you must also comply with the Electronic Commerce Regulations, whether you are selling to individual consumers or businesses. These specify the information you must provide and require you to make sure your customers can copy and/or print your terms of business.

Selling over the phone

If you plan to make unsolicited marketing phone calls, check that your targets have not opted out of receiving marketing telephone calls by registering with the Telephone Preference Service or the Corporate Telephone Preference Service. Similar considerations apply to fax marketing.

If your marketing activities involve processing personal data on individuals – for example, storing their details on a marketing database – you must also comply with data protection regulations.