Selling on Amazon, bol.com and Cdiscount: seller obligations

Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety, known as GPSR, has applied since December 13, 2024. It replaces Directive 2001/95/EC and applies directly in all Member States, with no transposition law needed. It covers non-food consumer products, whether new, used or refurbished, except for categories under their own regime, medicines, foodstuffs, animal feed, plants and live animals, and plant protection products.

Direct consequence for a seller importing from China: a product can only be placed on the market if there is an economic operator established in the Union, responsible for the tasks under Article 4(3) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, whether manufacturer, authorized representative, importer, distributor or fulfilment service provider. Without this operator and its visible contact details, no serious marketplace should list the item. The Commission published implementation guidelines on November 19, 2025.

Since January 1, 2022, any producer under extended producer responsibility, manufacturer, distributor or importer, who places products subject to an EPR scheme on the French market must register with the SYDEREP register run by ADEME and obtain a unique identifier, a fifteen-character code starting with the letters FR. This identifier must appear in the terms and conditions of sale and be given to any trade buyer, including marketplaces, which are required to collect it before allowing a seller to publish listings.

Lacking the identifier exposes a seller to a fine of up to 30,000 euros, plus a daily penalty of up to 20,000 euros if the number has been withdrawn and the seller remains in breach. It is obtained through an approved eco-organization, under the collective scheme, or directly from ADEME, under the individual scheme. Details of the schemes and how the eco-contribution is calculated are covered in our dedicated article on EPR.

Any company that first places packaged goods into commercial circulation in Germany, whether manufacturer, brand or online seller, must register free of charge with the LUCID register, run by the Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister. There is no minimum threshold: neither the size of the company nor the volume of packaging exempts anyone from this registration from the very first sale delivered to Germany.

Registering with LUCID is not enough on its own: it comes with a participation contract with an approved dual system, with data declared identically to both bodies. The European PPWR regulation, (EU) 2025/40, provides in its Article 45 for an authorized representative for any producer not established in the Union, with a deadline announced for August 12, 2026; its transposition into German law remained, at the time of writing, to be confirmed.

Amazon France's official seller page requires product compliance across its entire life cycle, electrical and electronic, toys, chemicals, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, textiles, food, medical devices, and the environment. For non-EU brands using Fulfilled by Amazon, the platform collects the contact details of a responsible person established in the Union, an obligation in force since July 16, 2021 for CE-marked products. Amazon states that this page does not constitute legal advice and that verification remains the seller's responsibility.

Several sourcing agencies report tighter checks since GPSR came into application, with a fourteen-day deadline to submit requested documents, test report, declaration of conformity, technical data sheet, supplier invoice, under threat of the listing being blocked. This timeframe has no confirmed official source directly on Amazon's pages; keep these documents ready before listing rather than in reaction to a request.

According to agencies specializing in supporting bol.com sellers, to be confirmed directly on the official partner page before any steps, a seller established outside the European Union cannot register directly: an entity established in the Union and a VAT registration, in the Netherlands and potentially in Belgium, are required, along with stock physically located in the Union. Each product must carry an EAN or GTIN code, or an ISBN for books.

The same sources indicate delivery within one to eight business days, returns accepted within thirty days, and a customer response within twenty-four hours. GPSR also requires a responsible person established in the Union for a large share of the products sold on the platform. A seller outside the Union can apply through a dedicated form, opened once a year.

Cdiscount Marketplace requires a SIRET number tied to a professional activity; all legal statuses are accepted, sole proprietorship, individual enterprise, EURL, SARL, SAS or SASU. The platform explicitly asks sellers to verify that the manufacturer and importer have met their obligations, and to refrain from selling a product they are not certain complies, which places responsibility on whoever publishes the listing, not only on the originating factory.

Subscription and commission figures circulate on third-party sites, without direct confirmation on the official seller pages at the time of writing: check these amounts on Cdiscount's seller portal before registering. The application file undergoes manual review before activation.

Most suspensions come from an incomplete file, not a genuinely dangerous product: the seller discovers the requirement at the check, when it should have been prepared before ordering from the factory.

Sorva is a brokerage and trading house between Europe and China, with a Chinese-speaking team based in Guangzhou and a team in Paris. We buy the goods in China and resell them delivered, which places us directly in the chain of responsibility targeted by GPSR, EPR and LUCID: before ordering, we frame the file to gather from the factory, risk analysis, technical documentation, packaging data useful for your declarations, and we have the actual product checked through a pre-shipment inspection.

Sorva also designs online stores and works on search optimization, our own site being published in twenty-four languages. A regulatory compliance study frames the obligations specific to your product and your sales markets, a technical product file gathers the evidence marketplaces expect, and the Produce and deliver formula handles production, inspection and delivery. In most cases, you open a file with us and we take a commission on the ex-works value.