What is GPSR? The EU General Product Safety Regulation, explained for Shopify sellers.

The General Product Safety Regulation, formally known as Regulation (EU) 2023/988, is the European Union's main consumer product safety law. It came into force on 13 December 2024 and replaces the older General Product Safety Directive (Directive 2001/95/EC). If you sell physical consumer products to anyone in the EU through Shopify - whether you're based in Paris, Warsaw, London, New York or Sydney - GPSR applies to you.

This page is a plain-English walk-through written for store owners and operations people, not lawyers. We focus on the practical question: what does your Shopify product page actually need to show?

The one-paragraph summary

GPSR says that before someone in the EU can click "Buy" on your store, your product page must clearly show who manufactured the product, who in the EU is responsible for it, what warnings apply, and how to identify the specific item (its type or model, plus any other identifier such as a GTIN/EAN). It must be in a language EU consumers in that country can understand. There are exceptions and edge cases, but that's the headline.

Who has to comply?

GPSR applies to any economic operator placing consumer products on the EU market. The regulation defines several roles:

• Manufacturer - the entity that produces the product or has it produced.
• Importer - anyone who brings a product from outside the EU into the EU.
• Distributor - anyone in the supply chain who is not the manufacturer or importer but makes the product available.
• Fulfilment service provider - warehousing, packaging, dispatch services.
• Online marketplace - platforms that connect buyers and sellers (this is where Article 22 obligations land).

For a Shopify merchant, the practical question is whether you are a manufacturer or an importer - both of those roles carry the heaviest obligations. If you sell only your own brand, you're the manufacturer. If you sell other people's products that you bring in from outside the EU, you're the importer. Either way, GPSR's information requirements land on you.

The "responsible person" requirement

One of the biggest practical changes in GPSR is that every product placed on the EU market needs to have an economic operator established in the EU who can act as the responsible person under Article 16. If your business is based outside the EU, this is the rule that catches the most merchants off guard.

The responsible person can be:

• The manufacturer, if it is established in the EU.
• An importer, where the manufacturer is not in the EU.
• An EU-established authorised representative appointed in writing by the manufacturer.
• A fulfilment service provider established in the EU, when none of the above exist.

The responsible person's name and contact details (postal address, email) must be shown on the product, its packaging, accompanying documents, or on the product page online. For e-commerce, the practical answer is: show it on the product page.

What must appear on the product page (Article 19)

Article 19 of the regulation is the article every Shopify seller should bookmark. It lists what must appear on a product offering online before purchase:

• The name, registered trade name or trademark of the manufacturer, and a postal and email address where the manufacturer can be contacted.
• If different from the manufacturer, the name and postal/email address of the EU responsible person under Article 16.
• Information allowing identification of the product, including a picture, type, and any further product reference.
• Any warnings or safety information that has to be affixed to the product or accompany it under GPSR or other applicable Union law - in a language easily understood by consumers, as required by Member State law.

That last point is what creates the multi-language requirement. If you sell into France, your warnings need to be in French. Into Poland, in Polish. Into Italy, in Italian. This is not optional and it is not satisfied by automatic browser translation.

The deadline

GPSR has been applicable since 13 December 2024. There is no grace period. Products placed on the EU market on or after that date - including products listed for sale on a Shopify store - must comply.

One useful nuance: products that were already placed on the market before 13 December 2024 (i.e. genuinely already in EU distribution, not just in stock somewhere) can continue to be made available without modification. But for any new product, the rule is in effect.

What enforcement looks like

Enforcement is handled by national market surveillance authorities - DGCCRF in France, AGCM in Italy, OCU/AESAN in Spain, UOKiK in Poland, BAuA in Germany, and so on. They can investigate complaints, do sweep audits of online listings, demand corrective action, and ultimately fine non-compliant operators or order takedowns.

The Safety Gate portal (the renamed RAPEX system) collects reports of dangerous products and is publicly searchable. Online marketplaces such as Shopify can be required to remove listings that authorities flag.

What this means in practice for a Shopify store

If you're running a Shopify store that ships to EU customers, the practical to-do list looks like this:

• Identify which products you sell are in scope (most physical consumer products are; digital goods are not).
• For each product, know who the manufacturer is. Get their full legal name and an address you can publish.
• Identify the EU responsible person for each product. If you are EU-established, that may be you. If not, you need an EU contact - either an importer in your supply chain or a third-party authorised representative service.
• Decide on warnings and safety information per product or product family. Many product categories have very specific warning text required by harmonised standards.
• Translate the safety-relevant text into the languages of each Member State you ship to.
• Render all of the above on the product page, visible before purchase.
• Keep a record of risk assessment and technical documentation per product, even if you don't publish it on the product page - authorities can ask for it.

Where Marqly fits

Marqly does not turn you into a manufacturer, find you a responsible person, or write warnings for your product category - those are decisions only you can make. What Marqly does is the part that is purely operational once you've made those decisions:

• Stores the manufacturer and responsible person details once, attaches them to many products.
• Stores the warning text per product (or per product group).
• Renders all of it on every Shopify product page, in 26 European languages (all 24 EU official languages plus Icelandic and Norwegian), shown to EU/EEA shoppers in their own language.
• Flags products that are missing required fields before they go live.
• Lets you bulk-update when an address changes or you add a new supplier.

Think of GPSR compliance as having two layers. The first is the legal-content layer: what your obligations are, who the responsible person is, what the warnings need to say. The second is the operational layer: getting all that information consistently onto every product page in every storefront language. Marqly takes the operational layer off your plate.

Useful primary sources

• Regulation (EU) 2023/988 - full text on EUR-Lex
• European Commission - GPSR information page
• Shopify Help Center - Understanding GPSR

One last note

This page is informational and not legal advice. If you are unsure about your specific obligations - particularly around whether you qualify as a manufacturer or importer, which warnings apply to your category, or who can act as your EU responsible person - talk to qualified counsel. The cost of getting that question right is usually much smaller than the cost of getting it wrong.