§4.1 Perishable goods

Article 6a 3. Member States may provide for different rules for goods which are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly. The option provided in paragraph 3 of Article 6a allows Member States to provide for different rules for goods that are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly. Such rules may even consist of completely exempting such goods from the scope of Article 6a or allowing the seller to indicate as ‘prior’ price the last price immediately before the price reduction. Goods which are ‘liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly’ are perishable goods that may need to be discounted more often in order to sell them faster due to approaching expiration dates. This notion is also used in Article 16(1)(d) of the Consumer Rights Directive (23) (‘CRD’), which provides that consumers do not have the right of withdrawal in respect of distance and off-premises contracts as regards ‘the supply of goods which are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly’. The CRD does not define the ‘goods which are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly’. The compliance with the objective criteria of being ‘liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly’ is to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Examples of goods liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly are fresh food and drinks with short expiry time limits. This possibility for Member States to derogate from the general rule on price reductions cannot be applied to goods that are not perishable because of their physical composition and properties but only ‘expire’ in the commercial sense, such as seasonal clothing (24). The same approach as the one under the CRD is valid when interpreting this notion under the PID.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07