5 things you
need to know
about
Selling Services
- Selling products online and running an ecommerce store is a very popular business strategy. You need three main legal documents to run your ecommerce store: sales terms and conditions, website terms of use and a privacy policy.
- Your sales terms and conditions set out the terms under which you sell your products to your customers. These should address what you provide and how you provide it. Delivery, payment, refunds and returns (set out in a refund policy, which should be part of your sale terms), all need to be dealt with in your sales terms and conditions.
- Your sales terms also need to set out the Australian consumer law mandatory consumer guarantees. They should also limit your business liability to the extent possible. An example would be disclaiming any liability if a customer uses a product that you sell in a way it shouldn’t be used and an injury occurs.
- Every ecommerce site also needs website terms of use, which govern your relationship with visitors to your site. These cover issues such as copyright, protecting your intellectual property including photos of your products, permissible use of the website and limiting liability for viruses.
- Finally, make sure you have a website privacy policy that complies with the Australian Privacy Act. Running a successful ecommerce site generally involves marketing to your customers. By law, you need to set out what personal information you collect, how you collect it and how you will disclose and use it. You also need to set out client rights to complain and contact you regarding their personal information.
