§3.3 Providers of online marketplaces

What is a provider of an online marketplace? A ‘provider of an online marketplace’ means a provider of an intermediary service who uses an online interface which allows consumers to conclude distance contracts with traders for the sale of products. These businesses therefore only provide online intermediation services for a given product. If your business also provides one or more of the services of economic operators, it then acts in that capacity instead and is subject to the obligations of the relevant economic operator. If a business also provides economic operator services for a given product, please consult point 3.1 and 3.2 of this guidance. What are my obligations under the GPSR as a provider of an online marketplace? It is important to underline the point that the obligations of providers of online marketplaces linked to product safety under the GPSR complement and further specify some of their obligations under the Digital Services Act (‘DSA’) (26). The following obligations, which are outlined in Chapter IV of the GPSR, concern all providers of online marketplaces except that those marked with an asterisk (*) are only relevant for (i) medium or large enterprises and (ii) micro/small enterprises where these micro and small enterprises have been designated as a ‘very large online platform or search engine’ withing the meaning of the DSA (27). Your obligations as a provider of an online marketplace under the GPSR are the following: — You should designate a single point of contact that allows for direct communication, by electronic means, with Member States’ market surveillance authorities in relation to product safety issues. — You should register with the Safety Gate Portal and should indicate on the Safety Gate Portal the information concerning your single contact point. — You should designate a single point of contact to enable consumers to communicate directly and rapidly with you in relation to product safety issues. — You should ensure that you have internal processes for product safety in place in order to comply without undue delay with the relevant requirements of the GPSR. These internal processes should include mechanisms which enable traders (your business partners) to provide: — the required product safety and traceability information; and — their self-certification in which they make a commitment to offer only products that comply with EU product safety rules and additional identification information in line with the DSA requirements. — You should take the necessary measures to receive and process orders issued by national authorities and you should act without undue delay (and in any event within 2 working days of receipt of the order). You should inform the issuing market surveillance authority of the effect given to the order by electronic means using the contact details of the market surveillance authority published on the Safety Gate Portal. Such an order might require you to, for a prescribed period, to remove from your online interface all identical content referring to an offer of the dangerous product in question, to disable access to it or to display an explicit warning. — You should take into account regular information on dangerous products that have been notified by the market surveillance authorities, received through the Safety Gate Portal. This will help you to apply your voluntary measures to detect, identify, remove or disable access to the content referring to offers of dangerous products on your online marketplace, where applicable, (including by making use of the interoperable interface to the Safety Gate Portal). You should inform the market surveillance authority that made the notification to the Safety Gate Rapid Alert System of any measures you have taken, by using the market surveillance authority’s contact details published in the Safety Gate Portal. — You should be able to receive notices related to product safety issues from any third parties (including consumers and consumer organisations), and process these without undue delay and in any event within 3 working days from the receipt of the notice. — (*) Regarding product safety, you should use at least the information in the Safety Gate Portal for the purpose of compliance with the required ex-post random checks under Article 31(3) of the DSA. — (*) Regarding product safety, you should suspend, for a reasonable period of time and after having issued a prior warning, the provision of your services to traders that frequently offer unsafe products. — (*) As regards product safety information, you should design and organise your online interface in a way that enables traders offering the product to provide at least the following information for each product offered and that ensures that the information is displayed or otherwise made easily accessible by consumers on the product listing: — the name, registered trade name or registered trademark of the manufacturer, as well as the postal and electronic address at which the manufacturer can be contacted; — if the manufacturer is not established in the EU, the name, postal and electronic address of the responsible person within the meaning of Article 16(1) of the GPSR or Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020; — information allowing the identification of the product, including a picture of it, its type and any other product identifier; and — any warning or safety information to be affixed the product or to accompany it in accordance with the GPSR or the applicable EU harmonisation legislation in a language which can be easily consumers can easily understand as determined by the Member State in which the product is made available on the market. — You should cooperate with the market surveillance authorities, with traders and with relevant economic operators regarding the safety of products offered online through your services. This should consist of the following in particular: — Cooperating on product recalls by: — directly notifying all affected consumers who bought the relevant product through your interfaces; — publishing information on product safety recalls on your online interfaces; and — generally, cooperating in the interest of effective product recalls. — Informing the relevant economic operators if you removed an offer of a product that concerns them. — Providing information to national authorities on dangerous products via the Safety Business Gateway. — Cooperating with economic operators and market surveillance authorities on accidents notified to you. — Cooperating with other relevant authorities including law enforcement agencies on unsafe products and in identifying the relevant supply chain. — Allowing data scrapping for product safety purposes if so requested by a market surveillance authority, and generally allowing the online tools operated by market surveillance authorities to identify dangerous products to access to your interfaces. In order to facilitate the compliance with your obligations the Commission has developed an interoperable interface of the Safety Gate Portal, which allows providers of online marketplaces to link in their interfaces. Best practices — Providers of online marketplaces are encouraged to join relevant Memorandums of Understanding that concern product safety, (e.g., the Product Safety Pledge+) (28). — Providers of online marketplaces are encouraged to check products with the Safety Gate Portal before placing them on their interface. Check list for the providers of online marketplaces ✓ Designate a single point of contact allowing for direct communication, by electronic means, with national authorities and with consumers (it can the same single contact point or two different ones). ✓ Register with the Safety Gate Portal. ✓ Set up internal processes for product safety. These should include mechanisms allowing traders to provide required product safety and traceability information, their self-certification and other DSA requirements. ✓ Ensure you can receive and process orders issued by national authorities and take required action without undue delay, and in any event within 2 working days. Report back to authorities. Track and disable access to listings with identical product, when so required by the orders. ✓ Take into account information on dangerous products from the Safety Gate Portal in your existing tracking or due diligence mechanisms. ✓ Ensure you can receive notices about product safety issues from third parties and process these without undue delay and in any event within 3 working days. ✓ Cooperate with market surveillance authorities, with traders and with relevant economic operators. Additional obligations for medium or large enterprises and micro/small enterprises where these micro and small enterprises have been designated as a ‘very large online platform or search engine’ withing the meaning of the DSA: ✓ Use the Safety Gate Portal information for the required ex post random checks. ✓ Suspend, for a reasonable period of time and after having issued a prior warning, the provision of services to traders that frequently offer unsafe products. ✓ Design and organise your online interface to enable traders to provide at least the following information for each product offered and that ensures that the information is displayed or made easily accessible by consumers on the product listing: — product identification details and its picture; — identification and contact details of the manufacturer; — identification and contact details of the responsible person for the product in the EU; and — instructions and safety information if needed. For more details, refer to the section 3.3. on the obligations of providers of online marketplaces.

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