Do you know all the legal ins and outs of running your own product business? Today on the podcast, I'm joined by Clare Veal of Aubergine Legal, a freelance commercial solicitor, qualified for over 20 years who advises businesses on a range of commercial matters. 

Clare is an expert in things law for e-commerce as well as lots of other areas. I seized the opportunity, and asked Clare all sorts of questions about everything including refunds, customer data, PCI compliance, terms and conditions and lots more. 

Clare was so patient, and answered everything, and shared lots of valuable resources and information.

It’s a great episode to listen to whatever stage you are in of your business, as you can check that you are fully covered and compliant. As Clare explains, the majority of us will be compliant and we will be doing everything right. And if we are not, there'll be a really simple fix for it. So this definitely isn't an episode to worry you!

If you have any questions after listening, please feel free to reach out to Clare, her contact details are at the bottom of these show notes.

Listen in to hear Claire share:

• An introduction to herself and her business (02:15)
• The areas that e commerce law covers (03:10)
• The five key pieces of legislation you need to know about (03:58)
• Laws to be aware of around your website and how customers purchase from you (05:08)
• Sorting out your terms & conditions (06:51)
• Things to be aware of if you are selling digital products, and copyrighting your work (10:46)
• Consumer rights to be aware of (12:49)
• Devising your refund policy (14:44)
• Data protection (17:39)
• What is classified as customer data (22:55)
• How you can legally use your customers’ data for marketing (24:41)
• The CAP code - what it is and what you need to know (28:50)
• PCI Compliance - what it is and what you need to know (30:32)
• Other pieces of legal information it is good practise to include on your website (33:11)
• Legal requirements when working with influencers (35:58)
• Trademarks (38:18)
• Business Insurance and Protection for Product Businesses (41:37)
• Why you need an accountant (33:21)
• Her main advice for product creators (44:21)

USEFUL RESOURCES:

Aubergine Legal Website

Aubergine Legal Facebook

Claire Veal Linked In

Cooling Off Periods: What’s a cooling-off period and how do I use it to cancel an order? - Which?

Refunds info: Accepting returns and giving refunds: the law - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Data Protection Guidance: For organisations | ICO

The Cap Code: Advertising codes - ASA | CAP

Blogs from Aubergine Legal:

What legal documents do I need for my online business?

9 Legal Tips For Selling Online Courses

Terms and Conditions for Selling Content Online

5 Legal Considerations When Working With Influencers

What UK Businesses Need To Know About The UK Data Protection And Digital Information Bill (DPDI) 

Further information:

• Sign up to Claire’s  monthly newsletter to stay updated with legal developments in the legal world – especially in relation to online businesses, data protection, artificial intelligence, intellectual property and commercial contracts. Contact | Aubergine Legal
• If there are any follow-up questions please email Claire at auberginelegal@outlook.com.
• Claire offers all new clients a free 30 minute initial consultation – if you are interested you can submit the form on my Contact page: Contact | Aubergine Legal
• Aubergine Legal Free downloadable template for people selling Online Courses/Workshops Online T&Cs for Online Courses and Workshops

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Bring Your Product Idea To Life - The Book - Available Now

Have you ever had a great idea for a product? Does creating a product to sell appeal to you? Where do you begin? How do you come up with a product idea? Or, if you have an idea, how do you know if it’s even viable? I’ve written a book which covers all this and more! Buy Bring Your Product Idea to Life here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1399954180

Speaker: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast.

Speaker: 00:00:05

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling

Speaker: 00:00:07

products, or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

Speaker: 00:00:11

I'm Vicki Weinberg, product creation coach and Amazon expert.

Speaker: 00:00:15

Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational

Speaker: 00:00:18

stories from small businesses.

Speaker: 00:00:20

Let's get started.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:24

Hello, today on the podcast, I'm speaking with Clare Veal, a

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:27

freelance commercial solicitor, qualified for over 20 years who advises businesses

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:32

on a range of commercial matters.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:34

So Clare is an expert in all things law for e-commerce and

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:38

well all kinds of businesses.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:40

And I invited everyone to answer all the questions I had and some

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:43

of the questions that you had regarding how, how to stay compliant

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:47

when running a products business.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:49

So, um, I fired a whole load of questions for Clare.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:52

She was very patient, um, very conscientious in how she

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:55

answered them, and I hope you find this episode really useful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:59

Um, I will say right at the top when we get into this, please, please,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:02

please don't be worried about all of the things that we cover.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:04

Um, because you may hear Clare talking about things that you didn't

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:07

know you needed to do or things you think, oh, I haven't checked that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:11

Please don't worry.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:12

Um.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:12

As Clare explains, the majority of us will be compliant and we

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:15

will be doing everything right.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:17

And if we are not, there'll be a really simple fix for it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:20

So this definitely isn't an episode to worry you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:22

Um, if you're starting out now, it's a really good way of making sure you start

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:27

right and you've got everything set up to be compliant right from the outset.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:32

And if you've been in business for a while, maybe this is just an opportunity

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:35

to just have a quick check and just go through and say, okay, have I done this?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:37

Have I done this?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:38

And am I compliant in the ways that I need to be?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:42

Um, so yeah, not to, not to scare anyone.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:44

This should be a really useful episode.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:46

Clare was fantastic.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:47

So helpful and um, I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:51

And if you do have any questions once you get to the end, then I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:53

will be including information on how you can reach out to Clare as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:57

So I would love to now introduce you to Clare.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:03

So, hi Claire.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:04

Thank you so much for joining me.

Clare Veal: 00:02:06

No problem.

Clare Veal: 00:02:06

Thanks for inviting me along.

Clare Veal: 00:02:08

I'm delighted to be here today.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:10

Oh, I'm delighted that you are here.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:11

Please start by giving an introduction to yourself, your business and what you do.

Clare Veal: 00:02:15

Yeah, sure.

Clare Veal: 00:02:16

So I'm Clare.

Clare Veal: 00:02:17

I'm a qualified freelance solicitor.

Clare Veal: 00:02:20

Um, I've been running my own legal consultancy, which is Aubergine

Clare Veal: 00:02:24

Legal for the last six years.

Clare Veal: 00:02:26

Um, and I specialize in commercial law, which includes all things

Clare Veal: 00:02:31

related to e-commerce and selling to businesses and consumers.

Clare Veal: 00:02:34

Um, but I also have expertise in intellectual property matters,

Clare Veal: 00:02:38

so that's anything to do with trademarks or copyrights.

Clare Veal: 00:02:41

So things like your brand and your content.

Clare Veal: 00:02:43

And also the delightful topic of data protection, privacy.

Clare Veal: 00:02:47

So that's sort of me, my legal background.

Clare Veal: 00:02:51

Um, on a personal level, I live in a little town called Hazlemere, which

Clare Veal: 00:02:55

is right at the bottom of Surrey.

Clare Veal: 00:02:58

With my husband and my two sons.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:00

Amazing.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:01

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:02

So I've invited you here today to cover off lots of legal questions

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:05

that we have for our listeners, about selling mainly online.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:10

So can we start with, what are some of the things that are covered by eCommerce law?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:13

What are some of the things that as business owners we need to consider?

Clare Veal: 00:03:16

Well, so e-commerce law is quite a big topic.

Clare Veal: 00:03:20

Um, it's broken down into lots of different pieces of legislation.

Clare Veal: 00:03:24

So for example, there are rules for how you should be

Clare Veal: 00:03:28

dealing with consumers online.

Clare Veal: 00:03:30

Then there are rules for the actual e-commerce experience, like for

Clare Veal: 00:03:33

example, when you should be displaying your Ts and Cs and you know, the

Clare Veal: 00:03:37

information you need to give people about your products and prices.

Clare Veal: 00:03:41

And then there are also the rules on, um, data protection and privacy.

Clare Veal: 00:03:46

So basically, um, anybody who's selling products or services online, they need

Clare Veal: 00:03:52

to be thinking about designing their online presence and their sales processes

Clare Veal: 00:03:56

to comply with all of these laws.

Clare Veal: 00:03:58

Um, and you know, there, there's, there's three key, well actually there's four.

Clare Veal: 00:04:04

Four key pieces of legislation.

Clare Veal: 00:04:06

There's the Consumer Rights Act.

Clare Veal: 00:04:08

Which deals with, um, all the rights that consumers have when buying or,

Clare Veal: 00:04:14

um, buying goods or services online.

Clare Veal: 00:04:17

Then the second one is the consumer contracts regulations, which sets out

Clare Veal: 00:04:21

all of the information that you as a seller need to display before, um, before

Clare Veal: 00:04:28

a customer actually buys your products.

Clare Veal: 00:04:30

Then there's some, um, consumer protection unfair trading regs, which

Clare Veal: 00:04:35

basically stops you from doing anything naughty, you know, nothing misleading

Clare Veal: 00:04:39

or any aggressive sales practices.

Clare Veal: 00:04:41

And then finally, there's the e-commerce, um, regulations, which

Clare Veal: 00:04:46

kind of overlaps a little bit with the consumer contracts regulations.

Clare Veal: 00:04:49

In there, it sets out all of the information you have to give

Clare Veal: 00:04:52

people before they actually pay their money and buy the item.

Clare Veal: 00:04:57

Oh, actually there's a fifth one as well.

Clare Veal: 00:04:58

There's a data protection act as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:01

Wow, that's a lot, isn't it?

Clare Veal: 00:05:02

There's a lot.

Clare Veal: 00:05:02

Yeah, there is a lot in there.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:05

Ok.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:05

Well, we're going to try and break it down and make it super

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:07

simple for everyone, Clare.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:08

So I'm going to start out with the first thing you mentioned

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:11

was the e-commerce process.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:13

So I guess, I guess that's how the website functions and how

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:16

people actually make a purchase.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:19

So what are some of the things that people need to consider here, please?

Clare Veal: 00:05:22

So the first thing I suppose you need to be thinking

Clare Veal: 00:05:24

about is who are your customers?

Clare Veal: 00:05:27

Um, if they're going to be, um, if they're going to be consumers, so

Clare Veal: 00:05:31

individuals, then you have to bear in mind all of the consumer law requirements.

Clare Veal: 00:05:36

So for that, you need to be crystal clear to your customers about what it

Clare Veal: 00:05:41

is you're selling, what the price is.

Clare Veal: 00:05:44

Any delivery times, what your refund policies are and so on.

Clare Veal: 00:05:47

And so when you are setting up your website and your e-commerce experience,

Clare Veal: 00:05:52

you must be making sure that you are ticking all of those boxes and

Clare Veal: 00:05:55

including all of that information.

Clare Veal: 00:05:57

Um, now some of the regulations do require you to display quite a bit

Clare Veal: 00:06:03

of information before the customer actually buys the goods or services.

Clare Veal: 00:06:08

And so people deal with this by having a set of Ts and Cs for dealing with

Clare Veal: 00:06:13

the sale of the goods or the services.

Clare Veal: 00:06:16

So be things like, you know, you have to tell people who you are.

Clare Veal: 00:06:20

You know, the, the name of your company or, or your trading name, your

Clare Veal: 00:06:24

contact details, um, your address.

Clare Veal: 00:06:28

You d you need to tell people things like whether you are v a t registered and

Clare Veal: 00:06:31

then there's all the information about the goods and services you're selling.

Clare Veal: 00:06:34

You know, what it is, how much it costs, and so on.

Clare Veal: 00:06:37

And so people deal with, you know, complying with the laws by having all

Clare Veal: 00:06:41

of this information in their Ts and Cs.

Clare Veal: 00:06:45

So I suppose that's the, the key, the key thing to think about when

Clare Veal: 00:06:48

you're setting up your online shop.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:51

Okay, that's helpful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:52

And I'm guessing that a lot of sort of website builders nowadays, so

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:55

Shopify for example, a lot of this is built in, I mean, you do need to make

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:00

customized, I was going to say make, but customize, I guess your terms

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:03

and conditions and your policies so they're relevant to your business.

Clare Veal: 00:07:06

Yeah, that's a really good point actually, because you

Clare Veal: 00:07:08

know, one business might be selling tickets for an event, and another

Clare Veal: 00:07:12

business might be selling, you know, webinars or somebody else might be

Clare Veal: 00:07:16

selling an actual physical goods.

Clare Veal: 00:07:19

Um, all of those are, they're all selling online, but they're quite

Clare Veal: 00:07:22

different things that are being sold.

Clare Veal: 00:07:24

So you have to definitely, you know, you can definitely use those templates

Clare Veal: 00:07:27

provided by WIC and Shopify and what you know, and all the others,

Clare Veal: 00:07:31

but definitely tailor them for your business and for the things that

Clare Veal: 00:07:34

you are actually selling, because otherwise they just won't make sense.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:39

That makes sense.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:40

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:41

And when we're thinking about terms and conditions, um, what would you do if,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:45

let's say you need to write terms and conditions or, but you are completely

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:48

stuck in what to include, where is there anywhere we can go and easily check

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:52

what needs to be in them just so we can make sure with staying compliant.

Clare Veal: 00:07:56

Yeah, so, um, I mean, people can sort of go online and buy templates,

Clare Veal: 00:08:00

um, you know, legal templates for this, um, which is fine as long as you read

Clare Veal: 00:08:05

them properly and you fill them in properly and tailor it to your business.

Clare Veal: 00:08:10

Or you can use somebody like me, I can help.

Clare Veal: 00:08:12

You know, I do help lots of businesses draft their terms and conditions

Clare Veal: 00:08:16

because there is a lot of information that you have to remember to include

Clare Veal: 00:08:20

in your terms and conditions.

Clare Veal: 00:08:22

Um, you can have a go at writing them yourselves, but sometimes it's best

Clare Veal: 00:08:26

to get it checked to make sure that you've got all of that pre-contract

Clare Veal: 00:08:29

information that you need to have in there is definitely in there.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:34

Okay, that's really useful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:35

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:36

So I'm assuming that as long as you've got your terms and conditions set up

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:40

and they've got, you know, they've been done professionally, you've had them

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:42

checked, then the other information.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:45

So what the product is, the product price, et cetera, that's

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:47

going to be on your product pages.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:49

So in terms of your website, you should be covered with the basics.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:52

If you've done that.

Clare Veal: 00:08:54

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:08:54

So if you are setting up your website, obviously the first thing to do

Clare Veal: 00:08:57

is to have all your pages set up where you are, you know, advertising

Clare Veal: 00:09:01

your products or your services.

Clare Veal: 00:09:03

Make sure that that contains all of the information about the products,

Clare Veal: 00:09:06

the price, how it's delivered.

Clare Veal: 00:09:08

Um, you know, if, if it's like an online course, you'd need to tell people

Clare Veal: 00:09:12

how to dial in and all of that stuff.

Clare Veal: 00:09:14

And then, so that's the first step.

Clare Veal: 00:09:16

And then the second step is making sure your Ts and Cs tie in with that.

Clare Veal: 00:09:20

And this is really important.

Clare Veal: 00:09:22

The Ts and Cs have to be agreed by the customer before they

Clare Veal: 00:09:26

actually make the payments.

Clare Veal: 00:09:28

Now, I've seen some websites where, uh, the payment, the sort of the e-commerce

Clare Veal: 00:09:33

experience doesn't have the tick box to agree and Ts and Cs anywhere, and the Ts

Clare Veal: 00:09:38

and Cs are just displayed on the page.

Clare Veal: 00:09:40

But you definitely need to get your customers to tick that box before they

Clare Veal: 00:09:43

can actually go on to make the payment.

Clare Veal: 00:09:46

In fact, your website should be set up to not allow the customer to

Clare Veal: 00:09:50

pay until they've ticked that box.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:52

That is such a good point.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:53

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:54

And actually, I, I brought something online recently and

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:56

noticed I had to tick that box.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:59

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:59

And that makes perfect sense now as to why that always pops up.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:03

Yeah, that's, that's good to know.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:05

And I, I do think, again, to reassure people, most of the pro, most of

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:08

the e-commerce website builders, so using Shopify, again, this is

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:12

something that's built in, so the functionality will already be there.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:16

It was just making sure that your terms and conditions are relevant

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:20

to your business and you're not just using the template that,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:22

that they popped in there already.

Clare Veal: 00:10:24

Yes, definitely.

Clare Veal: 00:10:25

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:10:25

Just read it all properly.

Clare Veal: 00:10:27

You know, sometimes there might be some clauses in there which don't

Clare Veal: 00:10:30

apply to you and you can remove them.

Clare Veal: 00:10:32

Um, if your, if your business is selling something sort of quite the,

Clare Veal: 00:10:36

you know, something different, you might need to add some extra bits in.

Clare Veal: 00:10:38

So, you know, by all means, use those templates, but make sure they definitely

Clare Veal: 00:10:42

work for you and your business.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:44

Brilliant.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:45

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:46

And so most of, um, my audience are selling physical products, but let's just

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:50

touch very quickly on digital products.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:52

Is there anything else we need to think about if, if we're

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:54

selling digital products?

Clare Veal: 00:10:56

So for, well, the same, well, actually before we go into that, I, I

Clare Veal: 00:10:59

probably should just quickly mention that not only do you need the terms

Clare Veal: 00:11:02

and conditions for selling goods and services, you also need to have on your

Clare Veal: 00:11:06

website, um, a set of website terms and conditions, and a privacy policy.

Clare Veal: 00:11:11

So all of these will apply to good services and digital products.

Clare Veal: 00:11:15

Um, so just remember that you remember to have all of those documents in place.

Clare Veal: 00:11:19

Then for selling digital products, you as well as having all the documents in place,

Clare Veal: 00:11:25

you need to make sure that you've got some kind of protections in place for the

Clare Veal: 00:11:29

actual content in your digital products.

Clare Veal: 00:11:33

So you know, because the content in there is all going to be your copyright.

Clare Veal: 00:11:37

So make sure you include copyright legends to, to tell the world

Clare Veal: 00:11:40

that it's your, your work.

Clare Veal: 00:11:43

Um, if you are selling digital products, um, maybe it's like a digital course

Clare Veal: 00:11:47

and you are using, you might be using parts of other people's work.

Clare Veal: 00:11:50

Make sure you have all the permissions in place.

Clare Veal: 00:11:53

Then for the terms and conditions, there's going to be a slight

Clare Veal: 00:11:57

difference here in that this is a digital product and so the usual

Clare Veal: 00:12:02

cancellation rights that consumers get.

Clare Veal: 00:12:04

So if, if you are buying something, if you're buying a good or service

Clare Veal: 00:12:08

online as a consumer, you get a 14 day cooling off period.

Clare Veal: 00:12:12

However, if you're buying a digital download product, that

Clare Veal: 00:12:16

cancellation right won't apply.

Clare Veal: 00:12:19

The key point here is that you need to tell people this,

Clare Veal: 00:12:22

especially if they're consumers.

Clare Veal: 00:12:23

You need to remind them.

Clare Veal: 00:12:24

So you need to put it into your Ts and Cs.

Clare Veal: 00:12:27

Um, some businesses even go a step further and have a little separate notice on the

Clare Veal: 00:12:33

actual purchase paid, making it crystal clear that once they've made their

Clare Veal: 00:12:37

payment, then they won't be entitled to a refund once the download has started.

Clare Veal: 00:12:42

So that, that's the key thing to think about with selling digital products.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:47

That's really helpful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:48

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:49

Um, so Clare, you've mentioned consumer rights a few times

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:52

so far in the conversation.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:54

Can you just talk us through some of the rights that consumers have

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:58

and how we ensure that as sellers we're compliant with them please?

Clare Veal: 00:13:01

Yeah, sure.

Clare Veal: 00:13:02

So, um, as I've already mentioned, that they're, they have the rights,

Clare Veal: 00:13:06

all of those pre-contract information.

Clare Veal: 00:13:08

So like I've already mentioned, make sure your websites display everything

Clare Veal: 00:13:11

upfront before they purchase.

Clare Veal: 00:13:14

Um, and before they, you know tick that box and make that payment.

Clare Veal: 00:13:18

All the information must have been displayed to them.

Clare Veal: 00:13:20

Then we've just touched on the cooling off period cancellation rights.

Clare Veal: 00:13:23

So consumers definitely have that right.

Clare Veal: 00:13:26

So, um, you know, this is applicable for any sort of goods

Clare Veal: 00:13:30

or services sold at distance.

Clare Veal: 00:13:32

However, there are some exceptions.

Clare Veal: 00:13:34

Um, we've just mentioned downloadable contents, digitalised, digital

Clare Veal: 00:13:38

items, but there are also other exceptions where consumers won't be

Clare Veal: 00:13:42

entitled to this cooling off period.

Clare Veal: 00:13:45

That would include things like, um, booking a hotel room.

Clare Veal: 00:13:49

Um, you know, renting a vehicle, you don't have a cooling off period for those.

Clare Veal: 00:13:53

Um, for things like, um, bespoke items, if somebody's ordered something and

Clare Veal: 00:13:58

people are making something bespoke for a, for a customer, then the

Clare Veal: 00:14:01

cooling off period doesn't apply.

Clare Veal: 00:14:03

And things like catering and leisure activities, you know, like theatre

Clare Veal: 00:14:08

tickets, weddings, all of those kind of things don't, um, entitle the,

Clare Veal: 00:14:14

the customer to cooling off period.

Clare Veal: 00:14:16

Um, So that's, that's one thing to, to kind of bear in mind.

Clare Veal: 00:14:20

The other right is obviously consumers, if they're buying goods or services, they

Clare Veal: 00:14:25

do have a right to a full refund, uh, beyond the 14 day cooling off period,

Clare Veal: 00:14:30

if an item is faulty or not described or doesn't do what it's supposed to do, um,

Clare Veal: 00:14:37

or if the service isn't up to standard.

Clare Veal: 00:14:39

So there is that refund right, as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:43

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:44

And are there any exceptions to the refund right?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:46

Because for example, I'm imagining, let's say you are selling pierced earrings

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:50

or underwear may be, um, are there certain products where you can, where

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:55

you can stipulate there are no returns?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:57

Or can anyone stipulate no returns for anything?

Clare Veal: 00:15:00

No, you can't, yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:15:02

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:15:02

Those examples you've mentioned, yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:15:04

You can't, you, you don't have to give a refund for them.

Clare Veal: 00:15:06

Sometimes it's at the discretion of the seller.

Clare Veal: 00:15:10

Um, but yeah, like I said, if, if an item is faulty or not as described,

Clare Veal: 00:15:15

or if they buy online and it's within that 14 days, then yes, you

Clare Veal: 00:15:18

definitely have to give a refund.

Clare Veal: 00:15:20

Say if somebody, um, went into a shop, say if you went into a shop and you

Clare Veal: 00:15:24

bought a, a red jumper and you took it home, I think you have 30 days that you

Clare Veal: 00:15:29

can get a refund if you change your mind.

Clare Veal: 00:15:30

But beyond that, if you simply decide that you wanted a blue jumper, not a

Clare Veal: 00:15:34

red one, but there was actually nothing wrong with the product, then actually the

Clare Veal: 00:15:38

shop doesn't have to give you a refund.

Clare Veal: 00:15:40

It's just that it's quite usual in this country for shops to have

Clare Veal: 00:15:44

quite flexible and favourable refund policies for customers as

Clare Veal: 00:15:48

part of their customer service.

Clare Veal: 00:15:50

So yeah, you should check.

Clare Veal: 00:15:51

There's no, you don't always have to give a refund if

Clare Veal: 00:15:54

somebody just changes their mind.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:56

That's really interesting.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:57

And so that's for, so for, for selling online, did you say that was 14 days that.

Clare Veal: 00:16:02

Yeah, so for 14 days, um, customers, you know, they can change

Clare Veal: 00:16:06

their mind for whatever reason, and you have to honour that, unless, of

Clare Veal: 00:16:10

course it falls within one of those things that we just mentioned, the

Clare Veal: 00:16:14

except exceptions, you know, like theatre tickets or digital downloads.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:19

Okay.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:20

And is there somewhere that people can go and find out what the exceptions are?

Clare Veal: 00:16:24

Yes.

Clare Veal: 00:16:25

Um, so if you just Google, I mean, uh, the.gov website has got a page on it.

Clare Veal: 00:16:30

And also, um, uh, trading standards also have a page about it as well.

Clare Veal: 00:16:37

Um, if you like, I can send you the links later and you can share them.

Clare Veal: 00:16:41

With us.

Clare Veal: 00:16:42

Your network.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:42

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:42

That'll be amazing.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:43

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:43

What we'll do is we'll put those links in the show notes.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:45

That might be interesting because I've certainly brought products where I've

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:49

been told before I've thought them, this can't be returned for whatever reason.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:53

Um, and I have, and some of them have been products out, so I'm not, I'm not asking

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:57

because I've got a vendeta against anyone.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:59

I'm just genuinely curious.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:00

Um, because I'm thinking there might be people thinking that they don't have

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:04

to offer refunds, but they actually do.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:06

Or perhaps they're off, they're offering refunds where legally

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:08

they maybe don't have to.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:09

So I think it's just a good check for people to do really.

Clare Veal: 00:17:12

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:17:12

And actually these links that I send you, um, anybody who's selling online

Clare Veal: 00:17:16

should definitely have a read of these anyway because it would be really useful

Clare Veal: 00:17:19

to read this information when you are devising your refund policy because you

Clare Veal: 00:17:24

need to make sure you are falling the right side of the law and by reading

Clare Veal: 00:17:27

these links will definitely help you.

Clare Veal: 00:17:29

Um, you know, because everything's different depending

Clare Veal: 00:17:32

on what you're selling.

Clare Veal: 00:17:32

So a good read.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:35

Yeah, that'd be really helpful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:36

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:37

So we'll link to those in the show notes.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:39

And now let's talk a bit about data protection, which is another right

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:43

that consumers obviously have.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:45

What we all have, um, do we need to do to make sure we um, compliant here because

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:51

obviously if we're taking payments and orders online, then obviously we are

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:54

holding a lot of customer data or we're at least processing customer data.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:17:58

Um, what do we need to do here, Clare?

Clare Veal: 00:18:01

So, yeah, you are quite right.

Clare Veal: 00:18:03

Um, any online shop needs to comply with data protection laws

Clare Veal: 00:18:07

because you are taking people's names, their payment details.

Clare Veal: 00:18:10

Uh, their address as well.

Clare Veal: 00:18:12

So you definitely, the first thing to do is to make sure you are familiar with

Clare Veal: 00:18:16

the general data protection principles.

Clare Veal: 00:18:19

So, um, this is things like, you know, make sure you only collect data that

Clare Veal: 00:18:24

you need, actually need, so you know, don't collect someone's date of birth.

Clare Veal: 00:18:28

If you don't really need to know how old they are, then make sure

Clare Veal: 00:18:31

that you are only keeping the data for as long as is necessary.

Clare Veal: 00:18:34

That's the legal position, so don't hold onto you know, loads of customer data if

Clare Veal: 00:18:39

you don't really need it, um, you know, and for the data that you are holding

Clare Veal: 00:18:44

onto, make sure that you've got, uh, an actual reason for keeping that data.

Clare Veal: 00:18:48

Um, and also make sure you keep all the data safe and secure, because if

Clare Veal: 00:18:53

you were doing something wrong, you would just need to be able to justify

Clare Veal: 00:18:56

and explain to the I C O why you were doing something in a particular way.

Clare Veal: 00:19:00

So on that point, the ico, if anybody doesn't know, is the

Clare Veal: 00:19:04

Information Commissioner's Office.

Clare Veal: 00:19:07

And they're, uh, a government body which looks after data

Clare Veal: 00:19:10

protection on their website.

Clare Veal: 00:19:12

It's super useful.

Clare Veal: 00:19:13

They have difference that they have a whole section for businesses and

Clare Veal: 00:19:16

organizations, and there's layers of tips and information on there

Clare Veal: 00:19:20

as to what you need to do when setting up and running your business

Clare Veal: 00:19:23

to stay compliant with the laws.

Clare Veal: 00:19:26

So I think, yeah, the first step is maybe go onto the ICO's website,

Clare Veal: 00:19:30

have a look, get familiar with what you're supposed to be doing.

Clare Veal: 00:19:34

Then secondly, Um, you should put in place a privacy policy for your business.

Clare Veal: 00:19:40

Now, by having a privacy policy, you are going to be ticking a

Clare Veal: 00:19:43

lot of the boxes already, um, for complying with data protection laws.

Clare Veal: 00:19:48

So your privacy policy needs to tell people, you know, who you are,

Clare Veal: 00:19:52

um, how people can contact you, and then you need to set out in detail

Clare Veal: 00:19:56

all of the information, um, that you're collecting about people, how

Clare Veal: 00:20:00

you're going to be using that data.

Clare Veal: 00:20:02

If you're going to be sharing it with it with anybody and your justifications

Clare Veal: 00:20:06

for why you're using it all, if you fill in your privacy policy properly, then

Clare Veal: 00:20:11

you're probably about 90% of the way of being data protection compliant anyway.

Clare Veal: 00:20:16

Um, and then there's two other things to think about here with data protection.

Clare Veal: 00:20:21

The sec, the, the first one is that you also need to remember that

Clare Veal: 00:20:25

cookies on your website are also seen as a form of personal data.

Clare Veal: 00:20:31

Um, and in the UK there are laws which require people who, um, have a website

Clare Veal: 00:20:37

to tell their website users what cookies are being used on their website.

Clare Veal: 00:20:41

And then explain what the cookies do, and then provide information

Clare Veal: 00:20:45

about the reasons why they're there.

Clare Veal: 00:20:47

And, um, at the moment, um, this might change soon, but at the moment, UK laws

Clare Veal: 00:20:53

also require website operators to have a little cookie popup notice the first

Clare Veal: 00:20:58

time a website visitor visits a website.

Clare Veal: 00:21:01

You might have seen these annoying popup notices.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:03

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:21:04

And that the point of that is that people have to agree

Clare Veal: 00:21:08

to any non-essential cookies that are used on the website, but there's

Clare Veal: 00:21:12

a little glimmer of hope here.

Clare Veal: 00:21:14

In that there is a new piece of data protection law going through Parliament

Clare Veal: 00:21:18

at the moment, and if it gets passed, then they will be getting rid of this

Clare Veal: 00:21:22

annoying cookie popup requirement.

Clare Veal: 00:21:25

Um, then the, the other, the final thing to think about with data protection is,

Clare Veal: 00:21:32

um, that you need to, as a business, if you're collecting personal data about

Clare Veal: 00:21:36

people, you need to register with the ico.

Clare Veal: 00:21:39

So all organisations have to pay this fee once a year.

Clare Veal: 00:21:43

Um, it's, I think it's 35 or 40 pounds at the moment.

Clare Veal: 00:21:47

Um, basically it acts like a data protection tax.

Clare Veal: 00:21:51

So you pay this, this money and then the Information commission's

Clare Veal: 00:21:55

office uses that money to like help provide guidance to businesses.

Clare Veal: 00:21:59

And they also use that money to investigate data security breaches.

Clare Veal: 00:22:02

But if you don't pay that fee, you know, they, they might ask you why you

Clare Veal: 00:22:07

haven't paid and remind you to do so.

Clare Veal: 00:22:09

They, they do sometimes do little audits.

Clare Veal: 00:22:11

They go through company's house and they, they check the companies

Clare Veal: 00:22:15

have all paid their fees.

Clare Veal: 00:22:16

So it's definitely something you need do.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:19

That's really useful to know.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:21

I actually though remember, this was a long time ago, Clare.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:24

Getting a notification about that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:26

There was something, and I can't remember what the thing was.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:29

There was one, there was a reason I didn't have to pay it, and I

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:31

cannot think what that reason was.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:33

It was, it was a reason they gave me when I phoned them to check.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:37

Um, do you have any idea what that might have been?

Clare Veal: 00:22:40

I don't know.

Clare Veal: 00:22:40

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:22:41

I mean, they, they do have different levels of fees for

Clare Veal: 00:22:44

different types of businesses.

Clare Veal: 00:22:45

I think charities pay less, for example, um, it might be that you weren't

Clare Veal: 00:22:49

actually collecting data about people.

Clare Veal: 00:22:51

I don't know.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:53

What does counter, that's a good question actually.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:55

So what is cus what do, what do they, what's classified as customer data?

Clare Veal: 00:22:59

So, um, well they call it personal data.

Clare Veal: 00:23:02

Basically it's any data that will identify somebody as an actual living human being.

Clare Veal: 00:23:08

So, for example, you know, Clare Veal and my home address, all of that is personal

Clare Veal: 00:23:13

data because it all relates to me.

Clare Veal: 00:23:15

But if you were just referring to me as Clare in Surrey, then that wouldn't

Clare Veal: 00:23:20

be seen as personal data because there's more than one Clare in Surrey.

Clare Veal: 00:23:25

So that wouldn't actually link back to me as an individual.

Clare Veal: 00:23:29

So yes, it'd be things like people's names, their addresses, email,

Clare Veal: 00:23:32

telephone number, bank details.

Clare Veal: 00:23:35

Um.

Clare Veal: 00:23:36

Yeah, even, you know, like as I mentioned, the cookies because people can, can track,

Clare Veal: 00:23:42

uh, an actual person by the use of a cookie because it links to their laptop.

Clare Veal: 00:23:45

So it's basically the key thing to remember is anything that will

Clare Veal: 00:23:50

identify you as an actual person.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:53

That's really good to know.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:55

And do we need to give customers the option to opt out here?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:23:58

Because I've noticed that very often now, if you buy something from an online

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:02

shop, you do have, you can, you do have the option of checking a box if

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:05

you don't want them to save your date, your details, or you don't want them to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:08

pass your details onto a third party.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:10

Is that a legal requirement to have that on your website?

Clare Veal: 00:24:13

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:24:14

So, um, in your privacy policy, you do have to set out to people what their

Clare Veal: 00:24:18

rights are with respect to their data.

Clare Veal: 00:24:20

And one of people's rights is the right to have their data deleted.

Clare Veal: 00:24:25

Um, but you don't necessarily, you don't have to have that opt out, but you do have

Clare Veal: 00:24:29

to have information in your privacy policy telling people what their rights are.

Clare Veal: 00:24:33

And then if somebody asks you to do that, then you would have to act immediately.

Clare Veal: 00:24:37

Um, so yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:39

That makes sense.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:40

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:41

And are we able to use customer data for marketing?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:45

And the reason I ask this, I know that something that's really popular is to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:49

use customers email addresses, to build an email address to then market to,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:53

or send newsletters or whatever it is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:56

Um, are we allowed to do this?

Clare Veal: 00:24:59

Yes.

Clare Veal: 00:24:59

So you can, um, freely add your customer's data to your newsletter

Clare Veal: 00:25:04

list without even getting them to opt in or get their permission on the

Clare Veal: 00:25:09

provision that it is for marketing to them for similar types of, well,

Clare Veal: 00:25:14

the same types of goods and services.

Clare Veal: 00:25:16

So, for example, if I went onto your website, um, or if somebody came

Clare Veal: 00:25:20

onto my website and bought some of my legal templates, I can add them to my

Clare Veal: 00:25:24

newsletter list and I can send them marketing about other legal services

Clare Veal: 00:25:28

I'm providing them, that I'm providing.

Clare Veal: 00:25:30

However, I wouldn't be able to use those email addresses to tell them

Clare Veal: 00:25:34

about my new sort of side business.

Clare Veal: 00:25:37

Um, so for example, say if I set up a gardening business in my spare time, then

Clare Veal: 00:25:43

I wouldn't be able to send an email to them, you know, telling them about my new

Clare Veal: 00:25:47

gardening business because they originally got in contact with me about legal things.

Clare Veal: 00:25:53

So there's that.

Clare Veal: 00:25:54

That's the first thing.

Clare Veal: 00:25:55

So you can freely market people for the same type of services and goods.

Clare Veal: 00:26:00

Um, if you want to market people for other things, then you would

Clare Veal: 00:26:03

need to get them to opt in.

Clare Veal: 00:26:05

And then the final thing to remember here is regardless of how you got them

Clare Veal: 00:26:09

onto your list, every time you send them a piece of marketing, you do have

Clare Veal: 00:26:14

to give them the option to unsubscribe.

Clare Veal: 00:26:16

So you need to have that little link to allow them to come off of

Clare Veal: 00:26:20

your newsletter list if they don't want to receive any more marketing.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:24

That's brilliant.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:25

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:26

And again, for people, for peace of mind, I think most of the sort of mail

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:30

software, so mailerlite and mail chimp, that's built in automatically, so.

Clare Veal: 00:26:34

Yes.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:34

Um, and also I know that when I add people to my own

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:37

mail software, I also get the little popup asking me if I have permission

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:40

to add people to the list as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:43

So I think a lot of the mail services have this kind of thing built into them now.

Clare Veal: 00:26:48

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:49

Um, in case anyone's worried whether they're doing this,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:51

you probably are, you probably are doing it and you just don't realize.

Clare Veal: 00:26:54

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:26:55

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:26:55

That's the, that's the beauty of using those providers.

Clare Veal: 00:26:58

But I mean, I think the key things to remember here is like, you try

Clare Veal: 00:27:03

to remember who your customers are and, you know, are they going to want

Clare Veal: 00:27:05

to receive all of this marketing?

Clare Veal: 00:27:07

Um, you know, you just, you, you don't want to annoy your customers,

Clare Veal: 00:27:11

so yeah, use it, you, you know, carefully and you know, make sure

Clare Veal: 00:27:16

you're not overburdening somebody's inbox because you'll just be annoying.

Clare Veal: 00:27:20

So yeah, make sure you have those permissions if you need them.

Clare Veal: 00:27:23

Give people the option to opt out and don't overuse it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:27

And I have another question I've just thought of.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:29

So, which is that let's say that um, you're not planning on sending

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:33

any emails or doing any marketing.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:36

Do you then have any reason to hold a customer's data?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:40

Um, or should you, in that case, just not keep it?

Clare Veal: 00:27:45

Well, it depends on what type of business you are running.

Clare Veal: 00:27:49

Say for example, If you're providing, if you're a psychologist and you're

Clare Veal: 00:27:53

providing psychology services online, then there's a, there might be a reason

Clare Veal: 00:27:57

why you need to keep hold of, for example, your therapy notes in case, um,

Clare Veal: 00:28:02

because I think there's, like, there's legal requirements to hold information

Clare Veal: 00:28:05

about children, for example, and their health until they reach the age of 25.

Clare Veal: 00:28:09

So in that case, yes, you should, you can definitely hold onto it.

Clare Veal: 00:28:14

If you, if you're running a website where you are just selling um, just

Clare Veal: 00:28:18

actual physical goods once somebody has, um, received the goods and they've

Clare Veal: 00:28:23

paid and it's been delivered and the timeframe for, for a refund or a

Clare Veal: 00:28:27

return has passed, then yeah, you don't really have a reason to hold that data.

Clare Veal: 00:28:32

So technically, in line with the data protection laws, you

Clare Veal: 00:28:36

should be deleting that data.

Clare Veal: 00:28:37

So again, it all depends on the business that you are running and

Clare Veal: 00:28:41

the type of goods or services you're providing as to whether you should

Clare Veal: 00:28:45

or should not be deleting that data.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:48

That's really useful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:49

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:50

So staying on the subject of marketing, I've heard of

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:52

something called the CAP code.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:54

I don't know what that is.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:55

Um, can you tell us what it is, Clare, and if it's something we need to think about?

Clare Veal: 00:28:59

Yeah, so that's, this is important.

Clare Veal: 00:29:01

Um, if you're going to be doing lots of marketing and advertising.

Clare Veal: 00:29:04

So the CAP code is a code that's been put in place by the

Clare Veal: 00:29:08

advertising Standards Authority.

Clare Veal: 00:29:10

Again, that's part of the government and it sets out guidelines for ensuring that

Clare Veal: 00:29:16

advertising and marketing promotions are carried out in a lawful manner.

Clare Veal: 00:29:20

Um, now the key thing to note here is that it is just guidance.

Clare Veal: 00:29:24

So if you don't follow the guidance, you won't, you know, you won't get a

Clare Veal: 00:29:29

massifying, you won't go to prison.

Clare Veal: 00:29:31

You know, nothing bad like that will happen.

Clare Veal: 00:29:34

But the bad thing that will happen is that they use non-compliance, um,

Clare Veal: 00:29:39

to sort of name and shame people.

Clare Veal: 00:29:41

So if you're not following the code and not complying with

Clare Veal: 00:29:44

it, then they will investigate.

Clare Veal: 00:29:47

They do publish their rulings and they use that to name and shame people.

Clare Veal: 00:29:51

So it will mean that your business will have a bit of reputational damage.

Clare Veal: 00:29:55

So it's not good.

Clare Veal: 00:29:56

So people, most businesses do take the time to have a look

Clare Veal: 00:29:59

at the cap codes website.

Clare Veal: 00:30:01

And to read the code, it's set out in a really clear way.

Clare Veal: 00:30:05

It's just like little numbers and bullet points, but basically it

Clare Veal: 00:30:09

all boils down to common sense.

Clare Veal: 00:30:10

You know, one of their rules is to, to not be unlawful and to not mislead people.

Clare Veal: 00:30:15

So, I mean, as long as you are running your business and advertising and

Clare Veal: 00:30:19

marketing your goods and services in a, in a sort of lawful kind of

Clare Veal: 00:30:24

honest way, then you should be fine.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:27

That's really useful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:28

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:28

And now I'm going to throw out another word that I've heard of.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:31

Um..

Clare Veal: 00:30:31

Go for it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:32

Is PCI compliance.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:34

That's something else that I've heard of.

Clare Veal: 00:30:36

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:30:36

So this is, this all relates to taking people's money and doing payments online.

Clare Veal: 00:30:42

So pci, um, it's, it's they, the PCI people have set up this

Clare Veal: 00:30:49

security standards council, um, I think it was back in 2005 or 2006.

Clare Veal: 00:30:54

And basically it's a little council which has been set up to ensure that

Clare Veal: 00:30:59

all companies that process, store or transmit credit card information,

Clare Veal: 00:31:04

um, put in place, um, a secure environment in which to do that.

Clare Veal: 00:31:09

Um, so for example, if you are processing customers payment details,

Clare Veal: 00:31:13

you need to do things like put in place a, a good firewall, have proper

Clare Veal: 00:31:18

password protections in place, um, encrypt payment details, and so on.

Clare Veal: 00:31:23

Um, now, now this, bear in mind, this all, um, applies if you are

Clare Veal: 00:31:27

managing the payments yourself.

Clare Veal: 00:31:30

But if you are using a payment processor like Stripe, or if you're using a

Clare Veal: 00:31:34

platform that has payments integrated like Shopify or wic, then they will already

Clare Veal: 00:31:41

be p c I compliant as the organizations dealing with processing payments.

Clare Veal: 00:31:46

So this will reduce your risk.

Clare Veal: 00:31:48

Um, so if you are using one of them, I wouldn't worry too much about this, but

Clare Veal: 00:31:54

you are still ultimately responsible for checking your security procedures, so

Clare Veal: 00:31:58

it's definitely worth reading up on it.

Clare Veal: 00:32:01

Maybe conduct some little security scans on your website.

Clare Veal: 00:32:05

Make sure that everything's safe and secure.

Clare Veal: 00:32:08

Um, top tips that people normally give in this area is to make sure you know, you

Clare Veal: 00:32:14

have unique, hard to break passwords, that if your customers provide their credit

Clare Veal: 00:32:20

card details over the phone that you, you know, don't hold onto it, delete it.

Clare Veal: 00:32:25

Um, pay special attention to roles and permissions on your

Clare Veal: 00:32:29

e-commerce platform site.

Clare Veal: 00:32:30

You know, make sure, uh, you know, the people who absolutely need it have access

Clare Veal: 00:32:35

to those admin roles and nobody else.

Clare Veal: 00:32:38

Um.

Clare Veal: 00:32:39

And then, you know, people like wics and Shopify, they often have things

Clare Veal: 00:32:43

like two-step verifications and third party authenticator apps and things

Clare Veal: 00:32:47

to, to keep things safe and secure.

Clare Veal: 00:32:49

So use those where possible.

Clare Veal: 00:32:51

Um, but yeah, I hope that explains it a little bit.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:32:55

That does.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:32:55

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:32:57

And I just have a few more questions, Clare.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:32:58

I did ask some input here, so I've questions that may, may

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:03

not seem like they follow.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:05

Because okay, we'll work through them.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:11

The next question you may have covered already.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:11

We've talked quite a lot about websites.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:13

Is there anything else, any other kind of legal documents or notices

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:17

that we need to have on our websites to ensure we're compliant?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:19

Other than the terms, conditions, and the privacy policy and the cookie policy?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:23

Is there anything else?

Clare Veal: 00:33:25

So yeah, apart from those three, you would need

Clare Veal: 00:33:27

some website, Ts and Cs as well.

Clare Veal: 00:33:29

Now, these will just sit as a little link at the bottom of your website, and they

Clare Veal: 00:33:34

will apply to anybody who visits your website, whether or not they actually

Clare Veal: 00:33:37

go on to becoming a customer of your's.

Clare Veal: 00:33:40

And so this will have inform, that these basically are there to protect you.

Clare Veal: 00:33:44

It will tell people, um, that the content on your website is owned by

Clare Veal: 00:33:48

you and that people can't copy it.

Clare Veal: 00:33:51

It'll have things like, you know, don't introduce viruses onto our, our website.

Clare Veal: 00:33:56

It'll have wording like, you know, if you, if we provide you a, with

Clare Veal: 00:33:59

a link to another website while not responsible for that third party website.

Clare Veal: 00:34:03

And then if your website has lots of advice or, you know, um, you know,

Clare Veal: 00:34:09

certain content, you might want to put a few disclaimers into your website, Ts

Clare Veal: 00:34:13

and Cs to sort of reduce your liability.

Clare Veal: 00:34:16

Um, so, so yeah, you definitely need those.

Clare Veal: 00:34:19

They normally sit as a little link at the bottom of the home page next to

Clare Veal: 00:34:22

your privacy policy and cookie policy.

Clare Veal: 00:34:24

So you, people normally have all three of those documents together

Clare Veal: 00:34:27

at the foot of their homepage.

Clare Veal: 00:34:30

Then, as you've mentioned, you have the ts and Cs for buying

Clare Veal: 00:34:33

the actual goods and services.

Clare Veal: 00:34:35

And then the final thing, um, that it's worth doing, you don't have to do

Clare Veal: 00:34:39

this, but it's worth putting a little copyright legend at the foot of your

Clare Veal: 00:34:43

website as well to tell the world that the content on your website is yours.

Clare Veal: 00:34:49

Um, so I think if you had all of those, oh, also some people have, um

Clare Veal: 00:34:54

some people like to have their refund policies separate from their Ts and

Clare Veal: 00:34:58

Cs as a separate link because, um, refunds and cancellations are quite,

Clare Veal: 00:35:04

are a key term and, um, the courts don't like it when businesses try

Clare Veal: 00:35:09

to hide key terms in their terms and conditions and their small prints.

Clare Veal: 00:35:13

So a lot of people when they buy online will just click that, yes, I agree to the

Clare Veal: 00:35:17

terms and conditions, little tick box.

Clare Veal: 00:35:20

So your refund and cancellation policy is quite key, so it is advisable to have

Clare Veal: 00:35:25

that as a separate document as well.

Clare Veal: 00:35:27

Even though it's a bit of a repetition, I would have that.

Clare Veal: 00:35:30

And then finally, the other thing that some, a lot of people do on their

Clare Veal: 00:35:34

websites is to have an FAQ section as well, which again, could include some

Clare Veal: 00:35:39

of the legal information, but it could also include information about, you know,

Clare Veal: 00:35:43

how your business, how your goods and services can be brought and all of that.

Clare Veal: 00:35:48

So yeah, I would think about all of those things.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:51

That's really useful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:52

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:53

Um, this is a completely different topic now, Clare, so we can talk

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:56

about something other than websites.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:58

Um, which is what about if you were working with influencers?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:01

So, um, some of my clients and and former podcast guests have done

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:05

very well working with influencers online to promote their products.

Clare Veal: 00:36:09

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:09

Is, are there any legal considerations that, um, we

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:12

need to be thinking about please?

Clare Veal: 00:36:14

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:36:14

So if you are using an influencer, um, well the key, the first thing is to make

Clare Veal: 00:36:19

sure you've got an agreement in place with them to set out, you know, how you're

Clare Veal: 00:36:22

going to be, how they're going to be, um, promoting your goods and services for you.

Clare Veal: 00:36:26

But the key thing to remember here is that it is actually a form of advertising.

Clare Veal: 00:36:31

And so the Advertising Standards authority, which we talked about

Clare Veal: 00:36:34

just now, they now say that you have to use the hashtag ad where

Clare Veal: 00:36:40

an influencer is promoting your goods and services on social media.

Clare Veal: 00:36:43

So, you know, make sure that they do that.

Clare Veal: 00:36:46

And you know, in your agreement with your influencer, you, you

Clare Veal: 00:36:49

should have a clause in there obliging the influencer to do that.

Clare Veal: 00:36:53

And also to comply sort of generally with the advertising standards,

Clare Veal: 00:36:57

authority and, and the cap codes.

Clare Veal: 00:37:00

Then I suppose, what else would you need to think about with the influencers?

Clare Veal: 00:37:04

Um, well, you'd need to think about your target audience

Clare Veal: 00:37:07

and whether the influencers, followers are aligned with that.

Clare Veal: 00:37:12

You know, are they actually going to help promote your goods and services?

Clare Veal: 00:37:15

Um, and then you need to think about, how are you going to pay the influencer?

Clare Veal: 00:37:19

Will it be a set fee?

Clare Veal: 00:37:21

Will it be based on commission, you know, number of sales of the

Clare Veal: 00:37:24

goods that they're promoting?

Clare Veal: 00:37:25

Or some people pay influencers by just giving them some of your, your

Clare Veal: 00:37:30

goods as a, as, as, as the fee.

Clare Veal: 00:37:33

But what, however you agree to pay them, make sure it's all agreed

Clare Veal: 00:37:35

upfront with the influencer.

Clare Veal: 00:37:39

And then another little point, well, final points of notes with influencers is that

Clare Veal: 00:37:44

you might not want them to be, um, doing any work with any of your competitors.

Clare Veal: 00:37:48

So you know, if you are, if you are selling hairbrushes, for example,

Clare Veal: 00:37:53

you might want to use a particular hairdresser influencer to promote

Clare Veal: 00:37:58

your, your hairbrushes, but you might not want them to be, uh, promoting

Clare Veal: 00:38:03

your competitor's hairbrushes.

Clare Veal: 00:38:05

Say you might want to consider having, um, an exclusivity clause in the influencer

Clare Veal: 00:38:10

agreement to make sure that they don't do that, um, whilst they're working with you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:15

That's really helpful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:16

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:18

Um, so now I have a question about trademarks, um, which

Vicki Weinberg: 00:38:21

is, should we be thinking about trademarking our business names?

Clare Veal: 00:38:26

Well, that's a business decision.

Clare Veal: 00:38:28

So it's, it's a, it's a, maybe you could, you could not.

Clare Veal: 00:38:32

It all depends on you and what's important.

Clare Veal: 00:38:34

So a trademark, if you get one, will you, if you have a trademark registration, you

Clare Veal: 00:38:39

will be able to stop anybody else using the same or similar name, um, for the same

Clare Veal: 00:38:46

or similar types of goods or services.

Clare Veal: 00:38:49

So if you have a trademark registration, it's really easy.

Clare Veal: 00:38:52

You just whip out your trademark certificates.

Clare Veal: 00:38:55

You can send them a cease and desist letter, and it's really easy to stop them.

Clare Veal: 00:38:58

If you don't have a trademark, then you have to rely on the law of

Clare Veal: 00:39:01

passing off, which is complicated.

Clare Veal: 00:39:03

There's lots of things you have to prove.

Clare Veal: 00:39:05

So I suppose to answer your question, should I trademark my business name?

Clare Veal: 00:39:10

The answer is, If you are worried that people are going to copy your

Clare Veal: 00:39:13

name and you, it's important to you, then yes, get it protected.

Clare Veal: 00:39:18

If not, maybe not.

Clare Veal: 00:39:20

Don't bother.

Clare Veal: 00:39:20

Lots of people run their businesses without having their brand protected.

Clare Veal: 00:39:24

But just a quick point to note here, it's really cheap.

Clare Veal: 00:39:26

It's, uh, you only have to pay the Intellectual property office 170

Clare Veal: 00:39:30

pounds to register a trademark.

Clare Veal: 00:39:32

So, um, it's definitely worth thinking about.

Clare Veal: 00:39:35

But before you spend that money and apply, you do need to carry out

Clare Veal: 00:39:38

some checks beforehand to make sure that nobody else already has the

Clare Veal: 00:39:42

same or similar mark registered.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:45

That's a good point actually.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:46

I was about to ask that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:47

So before you even start trading under a certain name, it's probably

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:51

a good idea, isn't it, to check that there's nobody else, there's no other

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:54

companies in a selling a similar product to you with a similar name to you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:39:58

Because presumably if you did, they could send you a cease and desist letter.

Clare Veal: 00:40:02

Yeah, exactly.

Clare Veal: 00:40:03

What, there's three main checks you should do.

Clare Veal: 00:40:04

First of all, just do a run on, uh, just a box standard Google search.

Clare Veal: 00:40:08

Just see who else is out there.

Clare Veal: 00:40:10

Um, then secondly, you can go onto the Intellectual Property Offices website,

Clare Veal: 00:40:14

and you can do a search for three.

Clare Veal: 00:40:16

You just type in the name and you can, you can select different types

Clare Veal: 00:40:19

of classes of goods or services.

Clare Veal: 00:40:21

So that will give you, uh, a check.

Clare Veal: 00:40:23

And then thirdly, go onto company's house and you can check for company names.

Clare Veal: 00:40:27

You can see if anybody has the same or similar company name to you.

Clare Veal: 00:40:31

Um, it's always best to stay away from anybody with the same or similar name,

Clare Veal: 00:40:36

with the same type of goods or services.

Clare Veal: 00:40:39

Um, but obviously, uh, if you, if people have a trademark, they can't have that

Clare Veal: 00:40:43

trademark for everything in the world.

Clare Veal: 00:40:45

So, for example, you know, HSSBC the bank.

Clare Veal: 00:40:49

They have all of their trademarks registered for financial services.

Clare Veal: 00:40:53

So in theory, you could set up another business using the HSSBC brand.

Clare Veal: 00:40:57

Well, actually that's not a good example cause that's a really famous mark.

Clare Veal: 00:41:00

And there's, uh, extra rules on famous marks.

Clare Veal: 00:41:04

Um, well take my business name for example.

Clare Veal: 00:41:06

So Aubergine legal.

Clare Veal: 00:41:07

I have that registered for legal services so I could stop any other freelance

Clare Veal: 00:41:12

solicitors or law firms from using the word Aubergine for legal services.

Clare Veal: 00:41:17

But if, you know, if somebody else wanted, you know, if, if the gardening

Clare Veal: 00:41:22

business came along and wanted to call themselves Aubergine gardening, then

Clare Veal: 00:41:25

I couldn't stop them from doing that.

Clare Veal: 00:41:27

So that's generally how it all works.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:29

That makes sense.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:30

Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:32

Um, just a few more questions, questions, Clare.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:33

You'll be glad to know I'm getting to the end of my list.

Clare Veal: 00:41:37

That's ok.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:37

Um, so is there any kind of insurance or protection you

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:40

recommend product businesses taking out?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:42

Because obviously we're all going to try really hard to

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:44

be compliant with everything.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:46

Um, is there any insurance that can help us?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:50

Should we get something wrong?

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:52

And are there any insurances we should have just in general

Vicki Weinberg: 00:41:54

because we're doing business?

Clare Veal: 00:41:56

Yeah.

Clare Veal: 00:41:57

So, well, first of all, it's super important that you do get insurance in

Clare Veal: 00:42:00

place because things do go wrong and you don't want your business assets or

Clare Veal: 00:42:05

if you're a sole trader, your personal assets coming under, under fire.

Clare Veal: 00:42:08

So yeah, definitely get insurance in place.

Clare Veal: 00:42:11

Um, I would always speak to a business, um, sorry, an insurance broker about

Clare Veal: 00:42:15

all of this because obviously, it's not really my area, but the things

Clare Veal: 00:42:20

that you probably should put in place are, um, well, if you're selling

Clare Veal: 00:42:24

products, you should definitely have product liability insurance.

Clare Veal: 00:42:27

Um, you know, if you're selling physical goods, if you are providing services,

Clare Veal: 00:42:32

selling services online, then you might want to consider getting professional

Clare Veal: 00:42:36

indemnity insurance in place, and then it might be worth just having general

Clare Veal: 00:42:41

business insurance in place as well.

Clare Veal: 00:42:43

So, for example, that would protect if you had a load of stock in infantry, um,

Clare Veal: 00:42:48

you know, and it got damaged in the fire, that type of insurance would protect that.

Clare Veal: 00:42:53

So yeah, those are the three main ones.

Clare Veal: 00:42:55

Um, if you have people coming onto your site, then you would.

Clare Veal: 00:43:00

Which probably doesn't really apply here because these are all online businesses.

Clare Veal: 00:43:04

But say if you had a shop or you were providing services in real

Clare Veal: 00:43:08

life, then you might need public liability insurance as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:12

That's really useful.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:13

Thank and I think your advice to speak to a broker is really good because they

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:15

will be able to advise you based on your business, but I guess we need insurance.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:20

That's good to know.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:21

And my final, final question, I promise Clare, is should we also

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:25

be thinking about talking to an accountant because as well as they.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:29

So when we're talking about staying compliant, I'm thinking it's not just the

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:33

law, it's also, there's also other things.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:43:36

Um, so do we need an accountant as well?

Clare Veal: 00:43:38

Well, the short answer to that is yes.

Clare Veal: 00:43:40

Always, always get an accountant on board.

Clare Veal: 00:43:43

Um.

Clare Veal: 00:43:44

Especially if you are selling your goods or services outside of the UK because

Clare Veal: 00:43:49

there will be v a t and tax implications if you're selling services cross borders,

Clare Veal: 00:43:55

which I don't know anything about.

Clare Veal: 00:43:58

And I, I don't want to know anything about, it's not my area.

Clare Veal: 00:44:01

But, uh, the accountants will be all over this if you're selling online.

Clare Veal: 00:44:05

There, there's certain digital taxes as well.

Clare Veal: 00:44:08

So yes, definitely talk to an accountant, make sure you're doing everything

Clare Veal: 00:44:11

properly, you know, filing, you know, on the right times and you know, you

Clare Veal: 00:44:17

know, there's certain, uh, thresholds when you need to be v a t registered.

Clare Veal: 00:44:20

So yes, definitely talk to an accountant.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:23

That's brilliant.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:24

Thank you so much, Clare, for all of this.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:26

Um, thank you for answering my big list of questions, being so

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:29

patient, being so clever as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:32

Um, and I guess finally, I just want to reassure everyone that this isn't,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:35

and I'm, I'm sure you'll agree with Clare, this isn't as scary as it sounds.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:38

And the likelihood is you'll be doing all of this already.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:42

Um.

Clare Veal: 00:44:43

Yes.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:44:43

But it's worth, it's just worth checking, isn't it?

Clare Veal: 00:44:47

Yeah, I think the key takeaways are is just to

Clare Veal: 00:44:49

have a general read around.

Clare Veal: 00:44:50

I'll, I'll send you some links that people should be reading.

Clare Veal: 00:44:54

Um, and then the key things is, you know, making sure that that that

Clare Veal: 00:44:58

e-commerce proce, purchase process is done correctly and that you have

Clare Veal: 00:45:02

those documents on your website.

Clare Veal: 00:45:04

If you do all of that, then you'll be most of the way there, being

Clare Veal: 00:45:08

compliant without even realizing it.

Clare Veal: 00:45:09

So yeah, definitely don't worry.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:11

Brilliant.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:12

Thank you so much Clare.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:13

I'm going to link to everything you send in the show notes and also your website

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:16

if people want to get in touch with you if they've got any questions or have

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:19

anything they need looking, looking up.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:22

And um, yeah, thank you again.

Clare Veal: 00:45:24

No problem.

Clare Veal: 00:45:25

Thanks so much for having me today.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:29

Thank you so much for listening right

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:30

to the end of this episode.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:32

Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:35

on my website, vicki weinberg.com.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:37

Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:45:41

and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful.