What legal stuff do I need for my online store?
Selling your products and services online is an incredible way to get to market quickly and without major expense. No bricks. No mortar. No rent. No shop assistants. No merchandising. Just the cost of setting up a store online and you’re good to go. E-commerce is a particularly powerful tool for startups who need to test their business ideas and products. Mainly because selling online allows you to adapt your offering with the agility of a panther.
When you run an online store, there is some legal content that you should have on your e-commerce site. This content helps safeguard both your business and your customer. You should factor these legals into the design process, whether you’re designing your online store yourself or whether a web designer is doing it for you. If you are using the services of a web designer, keep in mind that unless they double as a legal consultant too, it’s not their responsibility to sort out your legals. That’s on you. (And it’s just one of the legal responsibilities you’ll carry as a business owner - surprise!). If you’re running an online store already but don’t have these legal things, now’s a good time to sort it out.
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Privacy Policy
A privacy policy explains to the people who’re visiting and using your website how you treat their data. For example, if you operate an online store, someone buying something from you should be able to read about:
what type of date you’re gathering from them
how you’re collecting their data
what you’ll be doing with their data
how long you’ll be storing their data
who has access to their data
how you’re protecting their data
The point of a privacy policy is to protect both your business and the person on the user end of your website. As issues around data protection, personal information and cyber security become more and more prevalent, more and more businesses will come under scrutiny about what they’re doing to protect the people using their websites. Companies like Facebook and Google have received most of the limelight when it comes to the abuse of personal information, but with new privacy legislation coming into force around the world, ALL businesses - big and small - will need to step up their data policies.
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Terms & Conditions
Your Terms & Conditions agreement basically outlines the legal relationship between your online store and your customer. Keep in mind that your t’s and c’s should be written to fairly protect both you AND you customer. For this reason, your t’s and c’s should be written in normal-people-speak. Your customers should feel empowered to understand the scope and limits of your service to them.
Typically, your t’s and c’s will outline things like:
your payment terms
your return policy
your refund policy
your shipping / delivery policy
warranties and guarantees
the protection of your intellectual property
your rights as far as liability goes
how things will be dealt with if there’s a big dispute
the rights, roles and responsibilities of both you and your customer
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Cookie Policy
If the first thought you had when you read “cookies” was a Zoo Biscuit, you have some bedtime reading to do. A great way to describe a cookie - outside of the baked kind - is as the internet’s short term memory. Most of the time, when you visit a website, the site keeps track of little bit of information that then tailors your experience of that site and also of the internet. For example, if you keep visiting a site about leather handbags, you might start to see adverts for leather handbags popping up on your Facebook feed. Perhaps you’ve wondered how and why that happens. In very simple terms, cookies are the answer.
If you are the owner of an online store, it is important to let your customers and visitors know what cookies you are gathering and how you will be using them. A customer should be allowed to consent or not consent to your cookie policy.