REP27 · GPSR · Etsy
Article 16 GPSR · Etsy sellers
Etsy applies the General Product Safety Regulation listing by listing, not shop by shop. A seller outside the European Union who has not named a responsible person watches items disappear from EU search one at a time, usually without an email warning. This page covers what Etsy asks for, what the regulation asks for on top, and why handmade volumes change nothing.
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Volume is irrelevant. The regulation asks the same of a shop with three listings and a factory with three thousand.
Someone with a real establishment in a Member State who accepts the Article 16(3) tasks in writing. A fulfilment warehouse, a shipping agent or Etsy itself will not sign that mandate.
For handmade goods it is short: materials used, intended use and users, the risks you considered and what you did about them. It has to exist before the item is listed, not after a complaint.
Responsible person's name and postal address, and a batch or model reference. On the product, the packaging or an insert — your choice, but one of them.
In the language of the country where the buyer is. This is the requirement small sellers most often discover through a complaint rather than a guide.
The documentation must remain available to market surveillance authorities for ten years after the last unit was placed on the market.
| Point | Etsy | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Where details are entered | Per listing, in Shop Manager | Per ASIN, in Manage Your Compliance |
| Bulk assignment | Available, easy to miss on new listings | Available and prominent |
| What happens without it | Listing hidden from EU buyers | Listing suppressed, buy box lost |
| Warning translations | Seller's responsibility entirely | Partly prompted by the platform |
| Typical seller size | Sole trader, handmade | Company with a catalogue |
Europe Services SE in Prague, an EU-established company you can print on the label and enter in Shop Manager.
An address and inbox a consumer or an authority can actually use, in eight languages, with every request logged.
Your technical file and declaration kept available for the full ten years the regulation requires.
The exact text for the insert or the packaging, so the product matches the listing.
The GPSR replaced a directive from 2001 that placed most duties on manufacturers and importers. The change that caught Etsy sellers was procedural rather than substantive: for the first time, the operator's details have to be on the product before it can be offered, and marketplaces are required under Article 22 to collect and check them.
That turned a legal obligation into a technical gate. A rule nobody enforced against a sole trader in Ohio became a field that has to be filled before a listing is visible in Berlin, and the enforcement arrived through the platform rather than through an authority. Sellers who had traded into Europe for a decade woke up to hidden listings with no correspondence and no appeal.
It also explains the confusion about who signs. In the old model there was usually an importer somewhere in the chain who took the role by default. Selling direct from a home studio removes that intermediary, so the obligation falls back on the seller, who has to find an EU-established operator willing to accept it. That is the whole of what this page is about.
For every listing of a physical product sold to buyers in the European Union. Etsy collects the details at listing level rather than shop level, so a shop with fifty items has to attach the operator to all fifty. It can be done in bulk, but a new listing without the details is hidden in the EU from the moment it is published.
Yes. Regulation (EU) 2023/988 has no exemption for handmade goods, hobby sellers or small volumes. A single candle, a single ceramic bowl or a single knitted toy sold to a buyer in the Union is a consumer product placed on the EU market.
No. Etsy is an online marketplace and, under Article 22 of the GPSR, its own duties are about checking that sellers have provided the information. It will not accept the role and its help pages direct sellers to appoint one.
The name, registered trade name or trade mark and the postal address of the responsible person, plus a type, batch or serial number that identifies the product. It can be on the product, its packaging, the parcel or a document inside it.
Safety information and warnings must be in a language easily understood by consumers in the Member State where the product is made available. A toy sold to a French buyer needs French; the same toy sold to a Dutch buyer needs Dutch.
The GPSR covers physical products. Purely digital goods fall outside it, so a shop selling only patterns, files or prints as downloads has no responsible person obligation — though the GDPR side may still apply to customer data.
Etsy hides the listing from EU buyers, which removes the search visibility that took you years to build. Separately, market surveillance authorities can order corrective action against products already sold.
Designation signed within 24 hours, with a certificate carrying a code anyone can verify.
Appoint a responsible person