Are Marketplaces or Sellers Responsible for Product Safety?

Both play a role, but they are not interchangeable. Under the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988, online marketplaces carry specific cooperation and notice-and-takedown duties — yet the seller or economic operator remains responsible for the product’s safety and information. Listing on a marketplace does not hand your safety obligations to the platform.

What the marketplace is responsible for

• Cooperating with market surveillance authorities to help remove dangerous products.
• Acting on notices — taking down or disabling access to listings for unsafe products (notice-and-takedown).
• Providing a single point of contact and processes so authorities and consumers can flag safety concerns.

What the seller remains responsible for

The core safety obligation stays with the economic operator behind the product. That means ensuring the product is safe, providing the required warnings and identifying information, maintaining traceability, and running any corrective action such as a recall. If your goods are unsafe, the marketplace taking down the listing does not absolve you — it simply stops the sale.

In short: the marketplace polices its platform, but you answer for your product. Sellers who dropship or fulfil through a platform should be especially careful, because they are frequently the responsible operator even when they never physically handle the goods. Our GPSR for dropshipping FAQ covers that scenario, and the GPSR law page sets out the framework.

This answer is educational and does not constitute legal advice.