Sale of Goods and Terms for Website Builder Sites

The latest updates and additions to our large portfolio of website terms and conditions templates have now been published, this month focusing on two quite different areas of business. Our Website Builder Platform terms have been updated and, in line with other e-commerce templates, split into two separate documents. We have also introduced two new variants of our B2C sale of goods terms of sale.

Updated Website Builder Platform Terms and Conditions

Website builder platforms, allowing people to create their own websites using an online (often template-based) set of tools has become widely popular as it presents a straightforward, cost-effective way of setting up a professional-looking website without the high expenditure necessitated by a bespoke solution. Setting up such a platform as a business, then, has considerable potential.

Designed for use on websites offering such services, these terms and conditions have now been split into two documents, designed to be used together: Terms of Use and Terms of Service. The Terms of Use govern users’ use of your website itself, while the Terms of Service cover the use of, and subscriptions to, the website building platform. All key aspects of users’ use of your services are covered, including subscriptions, service availability, acceptable usage, intellectual property rights (yours and theirs), legal rights, liability, disclaimers, cancellations, privacy, data protection, and many other key issues besides.

New Sale of Goods Terms

When selling goods online to consumers, the so-called “cooling-off” period required by the 2013 Consumer Contracts Regulations is particularly important, giving customers, as it does, 14 days within which to change their minds about a purchase. There are, however, exceptions to this. These exceptions are already included as optional provisions in our standard e-commerce sale of goods terms; however our latest additions include other specific provisions designed to make them more suitable for two of those categories: food products, and bespoke goods.

In both cases, traders are able to exclude the 14-day cooling off period. In the case of food products, the perishable nature of food makes this possible. In the case of bespoke goods, it would be quite unfair to the trader if a customer were simply allowed to change their mind about a customised or made-to-order product after receiving it as in many cases it would not be suitable for sale to other customers.

Other variations in these new terms include, in the case of food products, details of allergens and specific references to ingredients and nutritional information; and in the case of bespoke goods, terms emphasising the importance of the customer providing the right information first time, lest the trader begin making or customising the goods using the wrong information (and protecting the trader in the event that this does happen).