Distance Selling Rules for Shopify Stores in the EU

Every sale your Shopify store makes to an EU consumer is a distance contract — an agreement concluded without you and the buyer being physically together. EU law has a dedicated set of rules for these, built around one principle: because the customer can't inspect goods or speak face-to-face, they deserve clear information and a way to reconsider.

This is general information, not legal advice. Here's what distance selling requires and how the pieces fit.

What counts as distance selling

Distance selling covers any consumer contract made through an "organized distance sales scheme" without simultaneous physical presence — websites, apps, phone, mail order, and marketplaces all qualify. If you run a Shopify store selling to EU consumers, you're doing distance selling by definition.

Three obligations sit at the heart of the rules:

1. Pre-contract information — what you must tell the customer before they buy.
2. Order confirmation — what you must provide after they buy.
3. The right of withdrawal — the 14-day cooling-off period.

Get these three right and you've covered the core of distance selling compliance.

Pre-contract information duties

Before the customer commits, you must give clear, comprehensible information. The required items include:

• Main characteristics of the goods or service.
• Your identity, trading name, and geographic address, plus contact details.
• The total price including taxes, and all delivery or additional charges (or how they're calculated).
• Payment, delivery, and performance arrangements, and the delivery timeframe.
• The right of withdrawal — its existence, conditions, time limit, and how to exercise it, ideally with the model withdrawal form.
• Who bears the cost of returning goods after withdrawal.
• The legal guarantee of conformity and any after-sales service.
• Complaint-handling and dispute-resolution information.

This information has to be genuinely accessible, not buried. Much of it lives naturally on product pages, checkout, and your policy pages — but the withdrawal details in particular are easy to under-communicate.

The "confirm order" button

There's a specific checkout rule worth calling out. When the order places the customer under an obligation to pay, the button or equivalent must be labeled unambiguously — such as "order with obligation to pay" or "buy now." If the trigger to pay isn't clearly labeled, the consumer isn't bound by the order. Check that your Shopify checkout's final action makes the payment obligation obvious.

You also can't use pre-ticked boxes to add paid extras. Any additional charge needs the customer's express, active consent.

Order confirmation requirements

After the contract is concluded, you must give the customer confirmation on a durable medium — typically email — within a reasonable time and at the latest on delivery. The confirmation must include the pre-contract information (unless already provided durably) so the customer has a lasting record.

For distance selling, "durable medium" matters: a page the customer viewed once isn't enough. An email or PDF they can store and revisit is the standard. This is also where your withdrawal information should reappear, so it's on record.

How the right of withdrawal fits

The right of withdrawal is the capstone of distance selling. Because the sale happened remotely, the customer gets 14 days to change their mind on most goods, starting from delivery, with no reason required.

Distance selling ties the pieces together:

• You inform the customer of the right pre-contract.
• You repeat it in the durable confirmation.
• You provide an easy way to exercise it.
• You refund within the required window and keep records.

Fail to inform the customer properly, and the withdrawal window can stretch far beyond 14 days — a costly mistake for high-value goods.

This is where process quality separates compliant stores from technically-compliant-but-painful ones. A withdrawal right that's legally present but practically hard to use generates disputes. Blockly — Right of Withdrawal gives EU shoppers a persistent, no-login withdrawal button, sends automated legal confirmation emails on a durable medium, and produces PDF audit reports — mapping neatly onto the inform, confirm, exercise, and record steps above.

Exemptions to know

Some contracts are wholly or partly outside these rules, and some goods are exempt from the withdrawal right specifically — custom or personalized items, perishables, unsealed hygiene products, and certain immediately-delivered digital content. Treat exemptions narrowly; misclassifying a standard product to dodge withdrawal is a common and risky error.

A distance selling checklist

• [ ] Pre-contract info shown clearly before purchase (price, identity, delivery, withdrawal)
• [ ] Model withdrawal form or equivalent easy method available
• [ ] Checkout's pay action clearly labeled as a payment obligation
• [ ] No pre-ticked paid add-ons
• [ ] Durable-medium order confirmation sent, repeating key info
• [ ] Working 14-day withdrawal process with timely refunds
• [ ] Records kept for each withdrawal
• [ ] Exemptions applied only where genuinely valid

Bringing it together

Distance selling rules aren't a scattered collection of obligations — they follow the customer's journey: tell them before, confirm after, and let them reconsider. Build your store around that arc and compliance becomes structural rather than something bolted on.

Start by auditing your pre-contract information and confirmation emails, then make sure withdrawal is easy to find and use. If that last step needs work, Blockly — Right of Withdrawal is a practical way to get it right.