Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 and the General Product Safety Regulation both define a distributor as any natural or legal person in the supply chain, other than the manufacturer or the importer, who makes a product available on the market. Wholesalers and retailers, physical or online, are distributors as long as they sell products that another economic operator has already placed on the EU market and do not sell them under their own brand. A distributor that rebrands a product becomes its manufacturer; one that buys directly from outside the EU becomes an importer.
Article R5 of Decision No 768/2008/EC, mirrored in Article 12 of the General Product Safety Regulation, describes the duty of due care. Before making a product available, the distributor verifies that it bears the required marking, that it is accompanied by the required documents, instructions and safety information in the right language, and that the manufacturer and, where relevant, the importer have put their name and contact details on it. Storage and transport must not jeopardise conformity. A distributor that considers a product not to be in conformity may not make it available, must ensure corrective measures are taken, and must inform the authorities where the product presents a risk. On request it must provide the information needed to demonstrate conformity and cooperate.
Under the 2024 Product Liability Directive a distributor can itself be held liable for a defective product if it fails, within one month of a request, to identify an economic operator established in the EU or its own supplier.