Tips for how to stay compliant when moving your business online

Although the value of e-commerce was well established long before Covid-19, lockdown has forced many companies to think digitally more than ever before. Those who can, are working from home, and many businesses are reinventing themselves online.

For those moving their business online, there are many things to think about, including compliance. A necessary task today, to avoid negative consequences later, compliance online is governed by overlapping legislation you need to be aware of, the GDPR, e-Cookie Directive and e-Commerce Directive. On top of this there is localised country specific legislation, for marketing and ecommerce to keep on top of.

To ensure website compliance there is certain information you need to include on your website:

• Information about your company, such as address, company registration no., email and phone number
• Legal Documents, such as Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Terms & Conditions
• Have proper product descriptions of your goods and services
• Pricing must be shown with VAT if you are selling to consumers
• If you are using influencers you need to inform your users about them
• You also need to inform your users about any hidden advertisement

Additionally you need to make sure that:

• Your website language matches that of your target audience
• You are aware of your target audience in relation to the content of your website and product, e.g. health care, alcohol, children, etc.
• You have an audit trail
• Security for example in connection with checkout flows,
• You obtain cookie consent from your website visitors
• You obtain consent from your users to your legal documents, where applicable

Further reading

We have compiled an in-depth article about website compliance for your information. In the article you can find out more about the key legislation you need to be aware of, and the various compliance elements that you need to comply with as a website owner.

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Keep track of your cookie consents and documentation easily, with a cookie consent system. Also known as a consent management platform or consent management solution.

With Openli you can collect and document consent for the cookies you use on your site. We use geotargeting to ensure that you collect the right consent in specific markets depending on the jurisdiction of the user or customer. Our solution scans your website and detects which cookies you use. With Openli you get a full audit trail, so you can prove consents to a data authority if you need to.

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