Introduction
Have you ever clicked “buy” and only then spotted the delivery charge, or discovered that returning the item was going to cost you? Surprises like that are exactly what EU law is built to prevent, and yet they still catch people out every day.
The Consumer Rights Directive, formally Directive 2011/83/EU and usually shortened to the CRD, is the EU’s rulebook on what a trader must tell you before you are bound by a contract. A trader here means anyone selling goods or services in the course of a business. The logic is simple. You cannot make an informed choice about a purchase unless the essentials are on the table first, so the total cost, the delivery arrangements, the identity of the seller and your cancellation rights have to be disclosed in plain language, before you commit rather than after. This article covers what has to be shared, how the requirements change depending on how you buy, when and in what format the information must arrive, and what happens when a trader skips it. By the end you will know what to look for as a shopper, and if you sell, what your own store needs to show.
Essential Information: What Traders Must Share
Let’s start with the basics. What actually has to be disclosed?
Article 5 of the CRD sets out the core list, and it runs to eight categories. In plain terms, a trader must tell you:
- Main features. The main characteristics of the goods or services, to the extent appropriate to the medium and to the product.
- Pricing. The total price inclusive of taxes, or the manner of calculating it where it cannot reasonably be worked out in advance, together with any additional freight, delivery or postal charges, or at minimum the fact that such charges may apply.
- Contacts and process. The trader’s identity, geographical address and telephone number, the arrangements for payment, delivery and performance, the time by which delivery will happen, and the complaint handling policy.
- Guarantees. A reminder that a legal guarantee of conformity exists for goods, plus the existence and conditions of any after-sales service or commercial guarantee.
Two more items complete the list. Contracts that run for a fixed term need their duration stated, and contracts of indeterminate duration or that renew automatically need the termination conditions spelled out, which is why your energy or streaming subscription has to explain how to get out of it. And for goods with digital elements, digital content and digital services, the trader must disclose the functionality, including any technical protection measures, along with any relevant compatibility and interoperability. That is the rule that requires a game to tell you which console it runs on and whether it needs a permanent connection.
One qualifier applies across the whole list. Article 5 requires the information only where it is not already apparent from the context. A price tag on a shirt on a rack does part of the job by itself. Member States may also choose not to apply this list at all to day-to-day transactions performed immediately at the time of conclusion, so the position on small everyday purchases depends on national law.
Wouldn’t you rather know all of this upfront? That is precisely the point of the provision.
Requirements by Contract Type: Tailored Rules
Does the way you buy change what you are entitled to know? Yes, considerably.
Article 5 governs purchases made in person, such as in a shop, a showroom or at a market stall. Article 6 governs distance contracts, meaning online, telephone and other remote sales, and off-premises contracts, meaning doorstep sales and similar. For those, the list expands from eight categories to twenty, and the “already apparent from the context” softener disappears entirely.
The additions are the ones that matter most. The trader must disclose the conditions, time limit and procedures for exercising the fourteen-day right of withdrawal, and must supply the model withdrawal form set out in Annex I(B) of the Directive. The trader must state who bears the cost of returning the goods, and where the goods cannot normally be returned by post, what that return will cost. The trader must also explain the circumstances in which the withdrawal right is lost or does not apply at all, and the minimum duration of your obligations.
Why the heavier list? Because you cannot inspect the item. In a shop you can pick up the shirt and check the fabric. Online you are relying entirely on what the seller chose to tell you, so the law compensates for that gap.
Online checkouts carry one further rule. Under Article 8(2), where an order places you under an obligation to pay, the trader must make you aware of the main characteristics, the total price, the contract duration and the minimum duration of your obligations, clearly and prominently and directly before you place the order. You must explicitly acknowledge that the order means paying, and where the order is placed by clicking a button, that button must be labelled legibly with the words “order with obligation to pay” or a corresponding unambiguous formulation. In Fuhrmann-2 (C-249/21), the Court of Justice held that whether a wording qualifies is judged solely on the words on the button itself, not on the design of the rest of the checkout. “Complete booking” did not pass.
And think about the doorstep scenario for a moment. Faced with a persuasive salesperson at your front door, wouldn’t you want a cooling-off period to reconsider? That is what the fourteen days are for, and some Member States extend it to thirty days for unsolicited home visits and promotional excursions.
Timing, Format and Delivery: When and How
So when does all of this have to reach you? Before you are bound by the contract or by any corresponding offer. Afterwards is too late, and this is one of the few points in the Directive with no flexibility at all.
Format depends on the channel. For distance contracts, Article 8(1) requires the information to be given or made available in a way appropriate to the means of communication used, in plain and intelligible language, and legibly where it is provided on a durable medium. Off-premises sales are stricter. Article 7 requires the information on paper, or on another durable medium if you agree to that.
Then comes the part that is easy to overlook. Under Article 8(7), the trader must give you confirmation of the concluded contract on a durable medium, within a reasonable time and at the latest on delivery of the goods or before the service starts. A durable medium means something you can store and reproduce unchanged, such as an email or a PDF. A link to a page on the trader’s website does not qualify. In Content Services (C-49/11) the Court of Justice held that information accessible only through a hyperlink is neither given to nor received by the consumer, and that such a website is not a durable medium.
There is also a rule about who has to prove any of this happened. Under Article 6(9), the burden of proving compliance with the information requirements falls on the trader, not on you. That single sentence is the reason well-run shops email everything and keep the records.
A few practical tips follow from all this. If you sell, keep the language plain and the sentences short, because “plain and intelligible” is a legal standard rather than a style preference, and it matters most for the people who find dense text hardest to navigate. Send confirmations, terms and the withdrawal form by email so both sides have a record. And design for mobile, since tiny print that nobody can read is unlikely to be treated as clear and comprehensible.
If you are buying, make sure you have the full picture before you commit. If a seller is evasive about costs, returns or who they actually are, that reluctance tells you something, and you are usually better off taking your business elsewhere.
Consequences of Non-Compliance: What Happens If It Is Skipped
What if a trader ignores these rules? The Directive responds with some unusually precise consequences.
You do not pay undisclosed costs. Under Article 6(6), if the trader failed to inform you about additional charges or about the cost of returning the goods, you simply do not bear them. The trader absorbs them.
The cancellation window stretches dramatically. Under Article 10(1), if the trader failed to give you the required withdrawal information, the fourteen-day period does not run out on schedule. It expires twelve months after the end of that initial period, so in practice you may have roughly twelve months and fourteen days to change your mind. It can be repaired, though. If the trader supplies the missing information within those twelve months, the window closes fourteen days after you receive it.
The order may not bind you at all. Where the payment acknowledgment and button labelling rules in Article 8(2) are not met, the Directive states plainly that you are not bound by the contract or order. Separately, under Article 6(5), the pre-contractual information forms an integral part of the contract and cannot be changed afterwards unless both sides expressly agree, so a trader cannot quietly improve their own terms after the sale.
Penalties follow too. Under Article 24, each Member State must lay down effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties for breaches of its national transposing law. So if you run a shop or an online brand, treat this as more than a legal box to tick. Clear, honest pre-contract information is one of the cheapest ways to earn repeat custom, and disputes about hidden costs are expensive long before a regulator gets involved.
Conclusion
To pull it together: traders must share the key details before you commit so that you can decide with your eyes open. The requirements scale with the channel, and remote and doorstep purchases attract the fuller list precisely because you cannot inspect what you are buying. The information has to arrive in time and in a format you can keep, and if there is a dispute about whether it did, the trader has to prove it. Skipping any of this leads to absorbed costs, an extended cancellation window, orders that do not bind, and penalties. Get it right and you build the kind of trust that brings customers back.
