FAQ's - General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR)

The GPSR does not apply to Great Britain, however it does apply to Northern Ireland since Brexit. If you sell into Northern Ireland on Fruugo you are still required to comply with the GPSR.

If you only ship to GB, we recommend that you upload the Contact and Safety Information where applicable to do so.

Please note the General Product Safety Directive 2005 does apply to Great Britain and responsible person information is required to list products in Cosmetics and Medical Device categories in the UK.

All products sold on Fruugo except the following excluded categories.

• Medicinal products for human or veterinary use

• Food

• Feed

• Living plants and animals, genetically modified organisms, and genetically modified microorganisms in contained use, as well as products of plants and animals relating directly to their future reproduction

• Animal by-products and derived products

• Plant protection products

• Equipment on which consumers ride or travel where that equipment is directly operated by a service provider within the context of a transport service provided to consumers and is not operated by the consumers themselves

• Aircraft and their parts, including remote control, used in military, customs, police, search & rescue, firefighting, border control, coast guard and similar activities

• Antique

However you must also ensure that all products, including those in the excluded categories, are also compliant with all other rules and regulations governing the product category.

Whilst food products are not covered by the GPSR, Fruugo is also requiring retailers to provide information on the Manufacturer and a Responsible Person in the EU for all food supplements as traceability is a core requirement in the EU Food Regulations.

All food products, including supplements, require a Food Business Operator to be designated who is legally responsible for ensuring products meet the food laws in the EU. Please use the EU Responsible Person field to specify details of your EU FBO to Fruugo.

A retailer must display all applicable safety information, including any safety warnings and user instructions on safe usage and disposal of the product. This information will be SKU specific. Post December 2024, Fruugo will be developing its compliance functions to allow retailers to provide further information to Fruugo to display on the product page including information such as user guides, images of the product packaging, a declaration of conformity, and the digital product passport.

Whilst Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU, the GPSR also applies to all EEA countries, and is not limited to EU countries. 

The GPSR defines ‘manufacturer’ as “any natural or legal person who manufactures a product or has a product designed or manufactured, and markets that product under that person’s name or trademark”.

A manufacturer may also include any natural or legal person who places a product on the market under their own name or trademark, or substantially modifies a product in such a way that the conformity with the requirements might be affected. Modifications to the product (physically or digitally) may have consequences on the nature and characteristics of the product in a way not foreseen in the initial risk assessment of the prodigy which might jeopardise the safety of the product.

As such, if you are selling own-branded products under your name, or trademark on Fruugo, you may fall under the definition of a Manufacturer and be subject to the requirements of a Manufacturer.

EU market-based Responsible Person needs to be one or more of the following:
• Any Authorised Representative of the manufacturer
• An importer-of-record
• A fulfilment service provider
• A distributor

Retailers should contact their supplier or the manufacturer to identify the contact information of the appointed EU based Responsible Person. 

Fruugo is working hard to prepare its systems to accept this information from retailers as soon as possible. If you have information prepared on the Manufacturer and EU Responsible Person, please contact your Account Manager and we can add you to the testing of the new tool. 

If you do not have the required information available, we recommend that you contact your distributor, and manufacturer to begin collecting this information in preparation for the official launch of the new tools. Our Account Management Team will be in contact to announce the official launch of the new GPSR tools to all retailers when this is available

If your supplier does not hold this information, or is struggling to find it, you should attempt to contact the brand or manufacturer directly as this information must be stored and available to the public. 

No, if a retailer or your supplier are drop-shipping the obligations remain the same. 

Unfortunately Fruugo cannot assist you with this directly, however we do recommend you contact a Product Compliance Specialists for any further assistance in meeting your compliance obligations.

If you do not comply with the GPSR, your products will not be displayed in the EU and you may be subject to further investigations and disciplinary action from Fruugo. In addition, you may be subject to penalties issued by Market Surveillance Authorities.

Please see our designated GPSR Help Pages for further information or view the Legislation in full here.

Please continue to check back on all GPSR Help Pages as we will continue to update these pages with further information and instructions. We aim to update all pages by the end of September 2024 ahead of the launch of the GPSR tools to retailers.