We are outside the EU and ship directly to EU consumers

Selling from abroad does not keep a product outside EU law. Under the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988, products offered for sale online or through other means of distance sales are deemed to be made available on the market if the offer is targeted at consumers in the Union, which is the case when the economic operator directs its activities, by any means, to one or more Member States (Article 4). Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 has the same rule for products under the CE acts (Article 6). The Commission's Blue Guide adds that in online or distance sales by operators outside the EU, placing on the market can take place before the goods are released for free circulation (section 2.5).^[1][2][4]

The central requirement is an operator in the Union. A product covered by the GPSR may not be placed on the market unless an economic operator established in the Union is responsible for the tasks in Article 4(3) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 (GPSR Article 16(1)). That operator is a manufacturer established in the Union, an importer, an authorised representative with a written mandate from the manufacturer, or, where none of those is established in the Union, a fulfilment service provider for the products it handles (Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, Article 4(2)). Its tasks include verifying the documentation, giving authorities information on request, informing them of risks and cooperating on corrective action (Article 4(3)); under the GPSR it also checks regularly that products match the technical documentation and the labelling rules (Article 16(2)).^[1][2]

Direct parcel sales often have no importer, because no business in the Union places the goods. The authorised representative is defined as a person established in the Union who has received a written mandate from a manufacturer (GPSR Article 3(9)), so a reseller outside the EU that is not the manufacturer cannot create one itself. The operator's name and contact details, including the postal and electronic address, must be indicated on the product, its packaging, the parcel or an accompanying document (Article 16(3)), and every online offer must show the manufacturer, the responsible person where the manufacturer is outside the Union, product identification and warnings (Article 19).^[1]

Marketplaces and customs enforce the same chain. Marketplace providers must let traders enter that information for each product and suspend traders that frequently offer non-compliant products (GPSR Article 22(9) to (11)), and under the Digital Services Act they collect traders' contact details, registration and a self-certification of compliance before allowing them to sell (Article 30(1)), unless the platform is a micro or small enterprise not designated as very large (Article 29). Products entering the Union are subject to risk-based controls before release for free circulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, Article 25(3)).^[1][2][3]