What must a UK online shop's website show about who is selling? The seven items, and which ones your shop needs

Most small shops know they need a returns policy. Fewer have checked the plainer rule: the site has to say who is selling. A buyer who wants to complain, post a return or find out who they paid should not have to guess, and the law says so in two places, one for every online seller and one for companies.

This guide sets out both, counts what each kind of shop must show, and gives a five-minute check for your footer and About page. It is about the information on the website. The emails that follow an order are covered in our guide to the order confirmation email.

The rule for every online seller

Regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 applies to anyone providing a service by electronic means, which includes a shop selling through its own website. The information must be "easily, directly and permanently accessible". For a shop that means on the site itself, not only in the order email, and not behind a login.

Regulation 6(1) lists seven items:

1. Your name.
2. The geographical address where you are established.
3. Contact details, including an email address, that let buyers reach you quickly and directly.
4. If you are entered in a trade or similar public register, the register and your registration number.
5. If your activity needs authorisation, the details of the supervisory authority.
6. If you are in a regulated profession, the professional body, your title and the rules that apply.
7. If you are VAT registered, your VAT number.

For a shop selling ordinary goods, items 5 and 6 almost never apply. Item 4 is where a limited company's registration comes in.

Regulation 6(2) adds one more duty. Where the site shows prices, they must be "indicated clearly and unambiguously" and must show whether they include tax and delivery costs. That is the same ground as our guide to postage in the headline price.

The extra rule for companies

A limited company has a second set of duties. Regulation 25 of the 2015 Names and Trading Disclosures Regulations requires a company to show particulars on its business letters, order forms and websites. GOV.UK sums them up for a limited company as:

• the company's registered number;
• its registered office address;
• the part of the UK where it is registered (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland);
• the fact that it is a limited company, usually by spelling out the full name including "Limited" or "Ltd".

Two points catch people out. The trading name on the site is often shorter than the registered name, so the full registered name should appear somewhere, and the footer is the usual place. And the registered office is frequently an accountant's address. The rules ask for that address as well as your geographical address, so if you actually trade from somewhere else, show both and say which is which.

What we counted

We sorted the items by who needs them:

A sole trader who trades under a business name should show that name and, as a safe habit, their own name too. Companies Act 2006 section 1202 requires the owner's details on business documents such as letters, orders, invoices and receipts. We did not find it extended to websites, so for a sole trader's site we have counted only the E-Commerce Regulations.

Where on the site

The "easily, directly and permanently" wording points at a footer or a page linked from every page, such as About or Contact. A single line in the checkout that disappears once the order is placed is weak. Put the details in the footer on every page and again on the Contact page, and keep them the same as the ones on your invoices.

A PO box is not a geographical address, which is also the position in the order confirmation guide.

What happens if you miss them

Regulation 13 lets a recipient of the service sue for damages for breach of statutory duty if regulation 6 is broken. In a small shop that mostly means a buyer who could not find you and lost money as a result, which is rare but expensive when it happens.

For a company, section 84 of the Companies Act 2006 makes failing without reasonable excuse to make the required disclosures an offence, with a fine up to level 3 on the standard scale and, for continued breach, a daily default fine of up to one-tenth of level 3. The company and its officers in default can both be prosecuted. We have not confirmed the pound figure for level 3 on the pages we read, so check it before quoting it. We found no sign that small shops are routinely prosecuted for this. The more likely cost is a payment provider or marketplace that cannot verify you, or a buyer who files a chargeback because they could not tell who they were dealing with. Our guide to chargebacks covers how those disputes run.

Five-minute check

1. Open your shop in a private window and scroll to the footer on a product page.
2. Find your name, a geographical address and an email address without clicking more than once.
3. If you are a limited company, find the full registered name, company number, registered office and the country you are registered in.
4. If you are VAT registered, find the VAT number; our guide to the VAT threshold says when that starts.
5. Compare them with Companies House and your VAT certificate for typing mistakes.
6. Check that your returns policy gives the address customers should send returns to, or says clearly that returns go somewhere else.
7. Look at an automated reply such as a where is my order reply and see whether it carries the same details.

When the details change

A move, a new email address, a change from sole trader to limited company or crossing the VAT threshold all change this list. Put "site details" on the same checklist as the tax return so the footer is updated when the paperwork is.

Overlyft can set up an AI assistant that compares the details in your footer, invoices and confirmation emails with Companies House and your VAT certificate each month, and lists mismatches for you to fix.

This is general information, not legal advice.