Could missing a simple £170 expense cost you your entire business overnight?

This week on The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I sit down with the sharp, straight-talking Lucy Wheeler of Lucy Legal to tackle the legal booby traps hiding in plain sight for indie retailers.

Hi, I'm Catherine Erdly and I’ve seen it too many times: stock room full, launch morning on the horizon… only for a cease-and-desist email to land and unravel months of work.

From that infamous £170 mistake to new rules around AI, GPSR, refund policies and more, we cover the real-life slip-ups that keep shop owners awake at 2am—and exactly how to sidestep them.

Why listen?

• Hear the heartbreak of a last-minute legal disaster (and the £170 fix you can make today)

• Demystify refund policies, legal basics, and essential legal templates for product businesses

• Ground your cash flow for retailers and prevent “sunk cost” pain with practical product business advice

• Learn how to future-proof with Lucy’s toolkit tips for AI and upcoming safety regulations (GPSR, GDPR, and more)

• Get independent retailer tips to scale confidently—from your first Etsy sale to six-figure growth

Timestamped summary

00:00 Clarify Refund and Return Policy

05:13 Refund Policy Considerations

06:43 Customer-Centric Legal Support

13:01 AI Legal Toolkit Overview

14:44 Negotiating Supplier Contract Terms

17:59 Freelancers vs. Employees: Business Decisions

21:12 New Product Safety Compliance Challenges

25:40 Trademark and Targeted Facebook Ads

26:49 Lucy Legal: Business Protection Tools

Keep the conversation going—DM me your questions or takeaways @resilientretailclub on Instagram. If you found this episode helpful, leave a quick rating or follow in your favourite app; it helps other indie retailers discover the podcast.

For bonus product business trends, check out my latest Forbes article on retail cash flow and funding options for indie retailers UK.

And here's this episode's freebie: https://resilientretailclub.com/sales

Mentioned in this episode:

Stock doctor

Faire 50% offer

Use the code GamePlan25 to get 50% off and free shipping with your first order at faire.com

Faire 50% off - use code 'GamePlan25'

It was the Friday evening she got a cease and desist from a company in

America. I think it was like 3:30. She was going to launch

on the morning, on the Saturday morning. And she said the whole spare

room is full of branded stock. I've put all of my savings into this.

And I was like, well, we can try and agree something with

them, but given the rights that they have and what that brand is,

there's no way they're going to agree. It could a simple

£170 trademark save your business from disaster.

Today we're uncovering the legal blind spots that could cost you

thousands.

Welcome to the resilient retail game Plan. I'm Catherine Edley and in the

next few minutes you're about to get powerful real world retail strategies

from insights shared both from my guests and myself, backed

up by my 25 years in the retail industry. Keep listening to

learn how to grow a thriving, profitable product business. Let's

jump in with this latest episode.

In this episode, I'm joined by Lucy Wheeler, founder of

Lucy Legal, and we're diving into the essential legal protections

every product business needs. From refund policies that build trust to

trademarks that protect your brand, we're talking about the practical steps that keep your

business safe and even help it grow.

So let's kick off then, Lucy, with having a think about

blind spots. So what are some of the biggest legal blind spots that

product business owners overlook and how can they avoid them?

The idea that you actually have to protect yourself with the legal elements

of your business. And what I mean by that is a lot of people, especially

when they're starting out, they think I'm too small. It's only reserved for

bigger people. It's not really the right time for me to do this. I can't

invest in this. And I think that that can be a really big blind spot

for product business owners where they think, oh, I'm only just selling

here, I'm only just doing a bit on Etsy, I've only got one product. And

I think that it's a mentality feeling of whether you are running

a sort of a business as a hobby. But even if you are doing it

as a hobby and it's just some passion project that you have, you still need

to legally protect your business because you don't want to get on

the wrong side of things. And by that I mean if something bad happens.

So if something does happen, say for example, someone asks you for a refund,

you don't want to then suddenly think, oh my goodness, I don't have any terms

or I don't even know what I'm meant to be doing. I've copied and pasted

my refund policy from someone else's website, but I don't actually

know how it works in practice. And I think that can be one of the

big things. People either they just completely bury their head in the sand

when it comes to legal, or they do get something

and it's potentially a copy and paste job from something else. And

people sort of have a little look around, find some terms, and they don't

work through how that's going to look in practice. In terms of

if someone's asking for a refund and they either do they need to return

the product, how is that going to work? Are they going to send photos to

you first? Will you accept photos? Will your approach be the same

for every single type of product you sell? Is there a different type of

threshold in terms of price point? So if you've got a more expensive product,

do you want that back? Like, are you going to want to examine the product

before you give someone a refund? Do you want to send the product back to

a manufacturer? Is there an off avenue for you to be able to get

money back? It's all of those kind of questions probably when I'm talking

it through now, people are nodding along going, oh, yeah, of course, of course, that's

really obvious. But you don't necessarily think of those things. No,

that's such a great point about how when people are first starting out, they just

think, oh, it's not really something that applies to me. I don't really need worry

about that. But you're interacting with all kinds of consumer laws just by simply

sending products out, right? Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that people

don't realize is that having a refund policy is a

legal requirement if you are selling to consumers. So you don't actually

have to have a full set of sales terms. You don't have to cover every

single element off. Obviously, my recommendation definitely would be

that you do that. But the key thing is that you tell people about their

right to a refund and something that a lot of people don't know this. If

you don't tell a consumer about their right to a refund, they can request one

from you up to a year and a day later. You know, that initial phase

where people have, if it's distant selling, you have 14 days to change

your mind, which we can talk to in a moment as well, that actually Just

continues to apply if you haven't told them about their right to a refund. So

you have that for a whole day. So it may be that you've done absolutely

nothing wrong, but because you didn't tell them about their rights, they

have this default right. So you definitely want to be closing that off.

And when I'm saying about the 14 days rule, that sometimes

applies, but it doesn't always apply. And I think when it comes to

refunds, you have to know how to handle them and you have

to be confident. And it might feel overwhelming at the start,

but it is relatively simple in that you just need to understand the who,

what, when, where and why of refunds. So it's

who you're selling to, because it differs if it's businesses or consumers,

what they're buying, when they bought, how they

bought from you, because if they purchased in person, it's different refund rights to

if they purchased online. And why they're asking for a refund. Because

obviously defective products have a different set of legislation that go with them, rather

than they've changed their mind or you've done something because you did a

bespoke piece and you spelled something wrong. For example, the why matters as well. So

all of those components might send you off on a different track

as to whether or not you have to give people a refund based on the

answer to those questions. When you're considering that who, what, when, where and why.

And also it might be that you think people listening are thinking, wow, okay, we're

right in at the deep end here. There's a lot I'm not even really sure

I even understand where I would be on if someone asked me for a

refund on those questions. But it's working out what your policy

is, making sure that that's legally compliant. So you have to do the bare

minimum, but then also working out what is it that reflects

your brand, what is it that you want to do, what is going to work

best for your business. So when I was saying, then it might be that you

think if something's 10 pounds or less or 20 pounds or less, you're

not going to ask people to return it, because that's just annoying.

The value isn't there for the time it's going to take. It may be that

you will extend timelines for people in terms of, you know, the 14

days. I've seen lots of brands do really great job for new

parents where they say, look, if there's a problem with it or you need a

refund if it doesn't fit. And you've missed that first 14 days. Get another 14

days on us. Because life is busy when you've got young children and you

know, like that fits in with their brand values of supporting parents and things.

And as a mum of two small children, so I kind of know that mayhem

of being like, oh no, we've got to get this back to the post office

kind of thing. They then basically use that idea of how can we

best support our clients. And even if you don't do it, so even if you're

like, oh no, I do need to send that back and you get it back

on time, just you reading that as a customer, they get me. I love

this about them. And all you kind of then would tell your friends, oh, they're

really great because they have this and they help with this or they'll give you

a credit voucher if you send it back or whatever. Do you know, like, it

makes you feel a certain way about a brand. And I think that's what I

love the most about supporting business owners is because

legal can feel confusing, overwhelming,

scary, boring maybe, but only if you're doing it in a way

where you're just burying turns on the footer of a website. If you're just copying

pasting things and you don't really get into the detail of it, it's

going to feel like that. But if you can find a way to be like,

hang on a second, I can use this thing that I have to do,

I have to comply, I have to have a refund policy. I can actually make

it part of my business and actually help me to bring in

customers and help them to like us as a brand, then

that's doing legal in a really great way.

So we talked about the refund policy, but what other essential legal

documents or agreements should businesses have in place from the get go?

I always say to people, make sure you've got a gold standard set of terms.

So whatever it is, however you're selling, make sure you've covered

everything off in your terms and conditions. So if you are selling online,

you've got a really great set of terms, sales terms and conditions that cover

everything off. And that obviously would include your refund policy. In

addition to that, you need to have a privacy statement. That's a legal requirement as

well. And even more so now linked to that

is potentially a statement on AI. So how you're using

AI that's applicable to your business may not be so much for product based

businesses, but it may be because you might be using it in your marketing.

And then the other thing that I think is really important to

at least understand from an early stage, if you don't get one right at the

beginning, is trademarks and the brand protection.

So really understanding the concepts around intellectual

property, I know that people hear that go intellectual property ip

like switch off. But it's so important to at least have the

basics that you understand so you don't do anything wrong, you don't infringe on someone

else's designs or products and that you know how your

brand is protected as well. That is really key because also

you don't want to be putting time and effort into building something. For example,

I've had somebody on the podcast before who built their brand up and then had

to change the name because they tried to trademark it. They realized, oh,

hang on a minute, I should get trademark. And then it was disputed and they

had to completely rebrand. And I think that is

such an interesting one that people again think, oh, it's not really relevant to me,

I'm so small. But at some point you don't want to end up with a

cease and desist letter from somebody else saying that you're using their trademark either,

right? Yeah, exactly. And I think that the piece that people don't

realize is that in the UK you can trademark from as little as

170 pounds. That's the smallest amount it can cost

in terms of your application fees. And yes, it's possibly better to try and get

some help and support with them. And you might want to either do a course

or get someone to walk you through the process so you've got the correct protection.

But even if you don't really know what you're doing and you just do a

bit of research yourself, getting an application

in to protect the name from a baseline, that you've got some kind of

protection and you put in a 170 application for like one class

that's going to stand in good stead. So I feel like it's heartbreaking for me.

I get really invested in a lot of people's businesses, but to have been on

the other side, you know when people call and they say, I really need your

help. This has happened similar to the previous guest.

It's awful to hear someone saying, well, hang on a second. So there's nothing I

can do now. And there isn't by that point, there isn't anything you

can, that I can do to help them, really, if someone else has got that

trademark registered and they are using that name and they haven't got permission and they're

like, oh, I wish I'd done this from the start. And I think, oh gosh,

I just need to amplify my voice and what I do more, I suppose in

my business. But yeah, it's heartbreaking. Yeah. If, if you decide on a name and

you want to trade with it, then you need to protect it.

Definitely. And I think it's just because the costs associated as well with

rebranding, especially for product based businesses. It's bad when it's a service

based business, but it's even worse with products. I've had somebody, they were

literally about to launch and that's how they were found about it. It was the

Friday evening she got a cease and desist from a company in America.

I think it was like 3:30. She was gonna launch on

the morning, on the Saturday morning. And she said, but all of the stock is

in my spare room. The whole spare room is full of branded stock.

And she's like, but I've put all of my savings into this. And I was

like, well, it's so awful. I was like, we can try and agree

something with them, but given the rights that they have and what that brand is,

there's no way they're going to agree it. So I was just, it was awful

and really, really heartbreaking. And then she was in tears on the phone. And it

just, it's so avoidable as well. That's what's annoying, is it? You

can prevent that happening to you is annoying if it happens and it's sort of

somebody sending one and it's a similar type of name and there are disputes when

it isn't avoidable, but ones like that where it is avoidable, that's really frustrating.

I want to talk a little bit more about AI because this is a relatively

new development, right? Yes. So in terms of having an AI policy,

the biggest thing about this is how it's linked with GDPR and

protecting client data. The EU AI act came into force

in 2024, so there's already a piece of legislation covering what you

can and can't do or what you will be able to do. Because a lot

of the implementation of that is coming out in phases.

But the biggest thing that people don't realize is that whilst they might be thinking,

well, there's not a lot in it that applies to me as a small business

owner yet everything that relates to the use of AI is

caught by gdpr. There's a huge amount of it where you have to

protect people's data and people's information. So if you're running

spreadsheets and running like any sort of data and analysis

and using AI tools to do it, then you potentially need to be making relevant

disclosures to your community to let them know. So

that is something that you, I believe you have a toolkit on this because it's

something that's kind of crept up and caught a lot of people by surprise. Yeah,

we do. And we've got videos and sort of a how to and how it's

going to potentially impact you and your business, walking you through the key issues and

the key areas and yeah, it's called the AI legal toolkit and it's

been really interesting because a lot of people sort of say, oh well, I'm only

using it for content or I'm only using it in this way. Is it still

going to apply? It's so fast paced. And one of the changes

that's happening in August of 2025 is that there's going to be a new

body like so somebody in the UK that's going to have to be responsible for

managing a lot of the development of AI and then like sort of compliance

side of it. So there potentially is going to be even more. So we said

to everybody, look, if you've got our legal toolkit, we will

support you every step of the way and every change that comes

up. And the same way that we do with all of our legal templates is

that we keep everything up to date. So you sort of buy a template or

a product from us, we always update it, no extra cost. So that's

something that we've always been committed to as a brand, just helping people. Because

everybody's busy, aren't they? Like you don't have to keep updating everything.

Yes, absolutely. And I think that that's the thing, especially for product businesses. We've had

so many things, I mean gdpr, remember when that came in and GPSR

and all of those new requirements and it feels like constantly having to jump through

hoops and people just don't have time. They just need to know what they need

to do to be compliant. Like everybody wants to be compliant.

Love to talk a little bit about how legal protections

evolve then as you grow. So we talked about what you need to have in

place from the get go, things like your returns policy, things like getting your name

trademarked. But as somebody grows, let's say they're moving from a one person

startup to say six figure business, then how do

their legal protections need to evolve along with that. This is where you need to

look at not only your own contracts and the contracts that you might have

with team, whether that might be yours or something from them, but also

beginning to really push back on supplier agreements and to really

start examining those. And I think that's the big shift. So when you are

a one man band and you're doing everything yourself, you almost just have to accept

everything that comes to you in terms of like everybody's a lot bigger than

you, their lead times, their payment terms, all of those kind of things. You

don't have as much leverage to push back and you don't necessarily have as much

experience. Obviously, if you feel confident to in the early days,

then do push back. But I think that the biggest shift when you're sort of

scaling and growing your business is to look at the contracts of other people when

you're working with their suppliers and things, and then push for more advantageous

terms that work better for you and your business. People don't do that.

And you sort of as well think, well, I'll maintain the status quo because we've

worked at them for a long time. But it's worth reviewing everything and seeing whether

you can get things that work in a better way for you. Because as we

all know, like cash flow is everything. Even when you're hitting six

figures, it's still key. And it only takes like one supplier or

one issue to happen to knock the whole supply chain. So if you can

review the terms and get more advantageous way for you, then I definitely look at

doing that. The team thing is the big thing. I think as you growing

out a team, you have to look at the terms and conditions that you're going

to have for that and whether you're going to employ somebody or work with people

freelance having contracts that don't necessarily tie

you in for long periods of time. So if you are sort of stuck stepping

into the world of getting more support is saying, I'm going to have a month

where I'm going to test working with somebody. And whilst they might say it's a

minimum three month term, it's a minimum six month term to work with someone, you

say, well actually at the start I just want to test this out for a

month because it's actually a huge learning curve. When you start

letting other people into the business and start getting support from other people.

And that's when you may then think, actually I don't want to run the business

in this way. I don't want to spend all my time doing approvals or give

this away to someone and testing it, I think over a short period of time.

And even if you do it for months and then say okay, like now we'll

have three months instead of thinking, oh gosh, now I've got this really big

outgoing that I didn't really want to have. And again, it's that cash flow piece

that can really damage business in the short term.

I have to say probably one of the biggest stresses that I see people dealing

with as their business grows is issues with staff as well.

So what do you think about things like grievance or disciplinary policies and things like

that from when you start adding. People in, it is the biggest headache, isn't

it with, with team? And it's really hard. And it's obviously if you're an employing

a team, then you have to understand that that's a whole host of

again, mandatory legislation. So if, even if you've employed yourself, another thing

that people don't realize is you meant to have an employment contract if you're a

director and you're employing yourself in your business. So make sure you've got that in

place. But you then have to have all the policies and the agreements you

say handle issues for grievances and you have to have handbooks in

place. And that's why I think it really helps with our legal templates because we

do all of that job for you. But at the same time, even with a

template, you have to work out how you're going to handle these issues and how

you want the business to run. And a lot of people I think think, oh,

the only way I can get help is if I'm going to employ someone now.

And then if I'm employing people, I've got payroll, I've got a pension or pension

opt outs, all of those things. But you can get freelancers, you

can get people who will be dedicated to your business, who will help you.

And it may take you a while to find the right one, the right fit.

But that can sometimes be better than necessarily getting someone

part time employed within the business. It can help you test it at

least in the short term to see if it's something that's going to work for

you and the way you run your business. Because it's hard for me, because I

see it obviously from the side when things go wrong with everything, with all of

the legal side of things. But I know even just not from the legal side,

just speaking to other people who run their own businesses, that that is the hardest

part as you said, managing team, finding the right support around you

and getting people to do it in the way that you want to do it

and sort of that acceptance that is it your brand value that done is better

than perfect, or does it need to be done your way and actually realizing

that when you take on a team, you're actually going to have more work in

the short term. Depending on how you set your business up, you might be

needing to create standard operating procedures, which, I mean, I know my

lawyer, but I find all of those things so boring. Do you know, like writing

down this is what we do and if this happens, this is what we do.

And it's just in order to be able to give those tasks away to somebody

else, you have to have told people like your processes and things.

And for most entrepreneurs, they wing it, don't they? They decide,

they go like, oh, this is how I launch or this is how I do

this, or this is how this campaign runs. And you just kind of decide it

how it feels good then to have to write it down kind of ruins all

of that. That's why I'm a big fan of the documenting it on a video

do screen recording. So this is how you do this and then you do

it. You had to do it anyway. Now just recording yourself, doing it. If you've

got your eye on the fact that you. That might be the next phase for

you. I think it was worthwhile doing all of those kind of tasks even before

you're ready by setting yourself up to outsource

is start by recording some of those things. And I think also remembering

that you don't have to outsource in your business. This might sound a bit of

a curveball on this type of podcast, but sometimes when you need more

time, you can outsource successfully in your own life to

give you more time. And that feels a little bit easier if you are in

this limbo period. So where you're at, the period where you're like, okay,

now I'm going to start filming myself and getting myself ready to hire someone. I

need to find the right person. I don't know if it's going to be employment

or freelancer, and in the meantime in your private life, getting

food ordered in that gets delivered to your door, or getting a cleaner

or those kind of things. As a small business owner, it might sound, as I

say, a bit unusual to say it, but it frees up your time to work

on the business. Not only you can clean your house, even though you might love

doing it, and that can help as well, just to get over that bridge of

things being difficult and having no time. Because it's hard when you're wearing all of

the hats, isn't it? Yeah, it's one of those things that especially as people grow,

often talk to them about what has to be you and what can someone else

do. But that's a great point to think about that in your private life as

well.

So we talked about the AI requirement coming

up, but in terms of any other recent changes or trends

in UK law, is there anything else that small businesses and

especially retailers and e commerce brands need to be aware of? Can we talk about

gpsr? Oh, we never know anyone to mention that again.

Let's do it. Okay, so the general Product Safety regulations came out. Well,

they came into force in December last year and I think

really disappointingly they took so many people by surprise, didn't they? It was

really hard and I think it still is hard for a lot of people. So

if you don't know what they are, essentially if you sell to

Northern Ireland or the eu, sell products to consumers, you now

have to have a safety technical file that goes with

your products and you have to have an EU representative to

represent you if you're selling into the eu,

which again comes with more paperwork and more expense.

And I think from my point of view, it was just so

heartbreaking to see everybody stop selling.

We set up an entirely new company based in Ireland to support people

and did the same sort of thing. So we have a legal template shop in

the uk. We've now got a base in Ireland as well. So we

support people to comply with their GPSR requirements and

get up to feed and provide that representation so people can continue to trade

because otherwise lots of people have just cut off a massive part of

their sales stream. Especially because then the US obviously with tariffs

and everything, that was a disaster. So it's kind of people really got caught

and they. Yes, and I think as well what's made GPSL so difficult

was that even when you went on the government website, a lot of the time

it would just say more information be forthcoming. And it's kind of like with the

tariffs as well, everyone's just stuck in this like, well, what is actually happening? You

know, it's so difficult when the kind of official channels don't really

give that much guidance because guess maybe they

don't know or they're just not geared up to give information in a way that

small businesses really understand. I was really surprised as the lack

of support that was available And I said, we ended up doing a whole new

business. And the fact that we had to do that just shows you how much

of a need there was for support. We ended up ranking number one on Google,

which I was like so pressed just because we were the only ones writing about

it. We were explaining to people what we need to do. And it isn't as

confusing as people think. And essentially you probably have done a lot of it

already. And it's essentially for every product that you have, you have to have technical

files, so documentation that goes with that product to say that it's safe. So

you essentially explain how it is safe and in what ways. And you put

together all of the technical information about it, including any test reports,

and then safety information, how you're complying with any safety testing, which

you would have done already. Like, that's it's again, it's an administrative task

to put everything together. And then that's the technical file. And you give that to

your authorized representative. And it's almost as simple as that.

It's not quite as simple as that, but it's that type of how it works.

And I think that a lot of people think, well, it's just way too expensive,

I can't do it. But yeah, I think I'll just keep digging and look for

other solutions if you think it's too expensive. Because it's not

necessarily. Now it was like with gdpr. I mean, yes, there's lots

of ins and outs of it, but at the end of the day, most people

were fairly compliant with it, you know, and there were people who years

later would say, I used to have an email list, but I deleted it because

I was scared of gdpr. And it's a real shame when that happens.

Yeah, definitely. And I think we're like years and years on now for

gdpr, but. And it keeps coming up, you do have to have the basic understanding.

And I think this is what's really hard about legal. And I think obviously follow

me online if you'd like to learn from me. But also there's a lot of

other, like, legal educators out there. So find someone that you like,

someone that operates in your jurisdiction or where you're selling to, because that matters

as well. So there's different rules in different parts of the world. Find someone

that you can trust and who knows what they're doing and to sort of just

listen and try and take in and absorb what's going on. Because I think that's

the biggest issue with legal is you can get very easily left behind. And

it feels like, oh my gosh, there's so much to do, but a lot of

it you will be doing already. And it's not as scary as it. As it

seems. It's not as boring as it seems. Like the gdpr, it's

data protection as well, but it's. You kind of just need to put yourself in

the shoes of being the consumer. So what are you going to want to know

if you were buying a product product, you want to know that your bank information

and your home information is safe and it's just those kind of things. It's not

as scary or different as it's just almost just jumping

through the hoops often. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much and I'd love to wrap up with a final question.

If you're an independent retailer or E commerce brand and I gave you

£1,000 to spend on your small product business, what would you spend it on to

make it more resilient? I can probably guess what the answer is going to be.

I'm going to split it and say the first thing I would do is spend

£170 on a trademark for sure. And I think I'd spend the amount

that I needed to on my trademark to make sure it was a good trademark.

But I'd actually use Facebook ads, I'd use investor

ads. We've been doing that. I've seen other people doing it as well and just

getting a really great return. But getting the right customer base because I think that

makes it so much more resilient. Instead of feeling like you have to show up

on socials all the time, there's so much noise, social media and it can

feel really draining. I think if you can create content, like test it

out organically first, find out what works and then

amplify that with ads. We started doing that about 18 months ago and

it's been absolutely incredible. Like an absolute game changer

to this business. And I see, obviously I see an inside a lot of

people's businesses, so I know what they do as well. And those that use

ads, not huge ad spend either. Just even like a few pounds a day

makes such a difference and I say makes it more resilient because it means that

you're not depending on social media, but it also means you're bringing in a wider

type of client and you can diversify a little bit more easily.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much. And do you want to finish off by telling

people where they can find out more about you and what you offer?

I have a legal template shop called Lucy Legal and you can find that on

lucylegal.co.uk we also have a membership where we support

all small business owners in the UK. And if you

head to lucilegal.co.uk checklist then you can grab a

checklist from us which includes the most important things that you need to be thinking

about when you're trying to legally protect your business. Thank

you so much for listening. Why not take a moment to follow,

subscribe or like the podcast, depending on what platform you're on,

and that way you'll be the first to know about every new episode that comes

out each week on a Thursday morning. See you next week.