Selling online to New Zealand consumers engages the same consumer protection law as selling in a shop, plus additional disclosure requirements that arise because the buyer cannot inspect the goods or the seller.
Consumer guarantees apply, unchanged
Goods sold online carry the same guarantees under the Consumer Guarantees Act — acceptable quality, fitness for purpose, matching description, and reasonable availability of spare parts and repair facilities.
The remedy structure is also unchanged. For a minor failure, the retailer may choose between repair, replacement or refund. For a substantial failure, the consumer chooses, and may reject the goods for a refund or replacement.
Two online-specific points follow. Where goods must be returned for a remedy, the retailer generally bears the cost of return for a failure — that is not a customer service concession. And the seller cannot redirect a consumer to the manufacturer; the consumer’s rights are against the supplier they bought from.
Change of mind is different, and worth saying clearly
There is no statutory right to a refund for change of mind in New Zealand, online or in store. Many online retailers offer one as a commercial policy, which is sensible in a channel where the buyer could not inspect the goods.
The important thing is to distinguish the two clearly in your policy. A generous change-of-mind policy should not be described in terms that suggest it is the limit of the customer’s rights, because that misrepresents their statutory position and is itself a Fair Trading Act problem.
Disclosure before the transaction
The Fair Trading Act requires certain information to be disclosed to consumers in distance selling, and clear disclosure protects you regardless:
- Who you are — legal trading name, physical address and contact details. Anonymous online sellers attract complaints and scrutiny.
- Total price, including any unavoidable fees, and delivery charges shown before the customer commits.
- Delivery timeframes, expressed honestly. Persistent failure to meet stated timeframes is misleading conduct.
- Returns policy, clearly accessible before purchase rather than only after.
- Terms and conditions presented so the customer must acknowledge them, not buried in a footer link.
Pricing and promotion traps
The recurring Fair Trading Act issues online are the same ones the Commerce Commission has pursued repeatedly:
- Was-now pricing where the was price was never genuinely charged for a reasonable period.
- Countdown timers and stock scarcity claims that reset or are untrue.
- Drip pricing — adding unavoidable fees late in checkout so the headline price was never achievable.
- Reviews that are fake, incentivised without disclosure, or filtered to show only positive feedback.
- Unsubstantiated claims about performance, origin or environmental credentials, where you need reasonable grounds at the time the claim is made.
Marketplaces sit on top, not instead
Selling through Trade Me, Amazon, eBay, Etsy or a social platform adds the platform’s own policies. Those policies are contractual obligations to the platform; they do not displace your legal obligations to the consumer.
Two practical consequences. A platform’s returns policy may be more generous than the law and you are bound by it commercially. And a platform’s policy being less generous than the Consumer Guarantees Act does not reduce the consumer’s statutory rights against you.
Account suspension is also a real business risk. Sellers dependent on a single marketplace should understand the suspension and appeal process before they need it, and should be building a direct channel alongside.
Privacy and payments
Customer data collected online is personal information under the Privacy Act 2020. Collect only what you need, tell people what you are collecting and why, store it securely, and have a plan for a breach — where a breach is likely to cause serious harm you must notify the Privacy Commissioner and affected individuals.
Note also that the recent IPP 3A obligation covers information collected indirectly, which catches retailers buying marketing lists or enriching customer records from third-party sources.
On payments, do not store card data unless you have the compliance capability to do so; use a payment provider. And note that the in-store surcharging ban does not extend to online payments — but any surcharge applied online must be clearly disclosed before the customer commits.
Selling to overseas customers
Consumer law in the customer’s country may apply to sales made into it, and some jurisdictions have mandatory cooling-off rights that New Zealand does not. GST treatment of exported goods, customs requirements in the destination and your Incoterm all need to be settled rather than assumed.
The Commerce Commission publishes plain-language guidance on online selling and the Fair Trading Act, Consumer Protection publishes material at consumerprotection.govt.nz, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner publishes privacy guidance for businesses. All free.
General information only, not legal advice.
