More than 50% of web shops do not refund the full amount

New ECC report on cross border online shopping focuses on failings in the European online market.

The European Directive in respect of distance contracts is clear, i.e. if a consumer cancels the purchase within the withdrawal period the seller must refund any amounts paid free of charge. The “mystery shopping” study carried out by ECC-Net shows that only 43% of sellers repay the correct amount.

ECC-Net decided to test the online market this year and ECCs in 17 different EU member states (including Belgium) each bought and returned 20 products priced between €50 and €150. Ultimately 305 purchases were retained. Each website was also checked to verify that it contained the necessary mandatory information.

Other findings:

The sites score quite high with respect to the display of mandatory information such as name (90% easily found), geographical address (86%) and e-mail address (80%), but not the company registration number (only 49%).
26% provide no information on delivery times and 7% do not provide information on delivery charges.
Only 82% of sites highlight the right of withdrawal and 20% provide incorrect information.
62% of goods were delivered within a week of payment, 89% within two weeks. On average 8 days elapsed between payment and delivery.
46% of repayments were made within 7 to 14 days, 10% not until 30 days after the return of the product.
Websites with a trust mark do not score any better than those without.

For further details refer to the full report “Online cross-border mystery shopping – state of the e-union”.

ECC provides an online tool (Howard) free of charge to help consumers avoid dubious websites.

eap