Successful development of the Fairness in Retail initiative!

Congratulations: The Fairness in Trade initiative of the IT law firm now has more than 30,000 members – and the trend is rising. Mass and growth are particularly important for such an initiative: The more dealers take part, the easier it is to prevent warnings….

Review: Once upon a time…

The IT law firm has been advising online retailers in the field of e-commerce for around 20 years. The law firm practically grew up with e-commerce. In this way, a high degree of specialization has been achieved over the years.

More than 65,000 dealers now use the legal texts of the IT law firm. This makes it one of the market leaders in the area of ​​permanent legal support for online retailers. The number of managed websites has increased enormously in recent years – the number of dealers that the IT law firm has been able to reach has never been as high as it is today.

One of the reasons for the strong growth was and is the heavily frequented one Law firm homepage: More than 400,000 interested parties currently use it every month to find information on the subject of e-commerce.

We not only provide information about various judgments, but also offer bite-sized legal information with specific tips and suggestions. The content presented not only provides information, but also gives advice and instructions – especially for online retailers.

In addition, the law firm has greatly expanded its partner network in recent years and is thus firmly rooted in the e-commerce scene.

Logical: The “Fairness in Retail” initiative

Due to this close connection to e-commerce, the founding of the “Fairness in Retail” initiative was an obvious choice.

Because of the close customer loyalty, the law firm is always close to the needs of the dealers. Due to the intensive support of online traders, you quickly learn what is legally relevant and how problems can be solved in a practice-oriented manner. One thing quickly becomes clear: Warnings are THE bogeyman of retailers.

The warning market has been booming for years and it doesn’t look as if this trend will change in the foreseeable future. There has been support from the since December 2020 Law against warnings – but unfortunately the warnings have not disappeared to this day – only the warning topics and the warnings have changed slightly.

For the time being, it remains the same: a warning is and remains a real threat for retailers: retailers must seek advice from a lawyer and often pay dearly for this. And they have to bear the warning costs – at least if the warning was justified. Depending on the scope of the warning, a considerable amount can be incurred here due to the high object values ​​in competition law. Most importantly, it distracts the retailer from what they should be doing: selling.

The founding of the Fairness in Retail initiative was therefore a logical step – because that’s what it’s all about:

• Waiver of immediate warning and priority statement of a free warning
• A warning after the expiry of the grace period remains possible

So nothing is lost – the initiative only prevents what retailers have often said to us: “Couldn’t he have contacted us first before issuing a warning?”

It’s worth it: No costs and minimization of risk!

There are at least two good reasons why it is worth participating:

• Free participation and risk minimization: Participation in the community is free of charge and can be terminated at any time.
• Reduction of the risk of warnings: As a member of a strong community, the risk of warnings can be significantly reduced.

All signs point to avoiding warnings – and without any costs!

A logo says more than 1,000 words

What should not go unmentioned here: The fairness in trade logo is above all documented fair play.

Clients of the IT law firm that Conditions of participation of the initiative have agreed can say with 1 character what words would laboriously describe as: This is a fair trader!

The catchy logo of the initiative, at best in the imprint (or prominently in the header and/or footer of your website), creates trust and shows how important fair play is to the retailer – which also has an indirect effect on customer relationships. A win-win situation, so to speak.

You can find detailed information on the “Fairness in Retail” initiative here or as a client of the IT law firm in the client portal.

Apropos: Avoid warnings – with the professional “Warning Radar” of the IT law firm

Speaking of which: also with the Protection packages from the IT law firm are primarily about avoiding warnings. Because if you always use up-to-date and therefore legally secure legal texts such as general terms and conditions, cancellation policy or data protection declaration, warnings in this area don’t stand a chance. Because for years, incorrect legal texts have been warned again and again, here above all the general terms and conditions – but since the implementation of the GDPR increasingly also the data protection declaration.

As part of our protection packages, we not only provide legal texts as well as numerous instructions and templates. Rather, we inform our clients in our regularly sent update service newsletters about current warnings and legal innovations – formulated in an easy-to-understand way and clearly summarized.