Can block a launchEuropean Union

Aiming a website at the EU is placing goods there

Under the European Union’s General Product Safety Regulation, products offered online are deemed made available on the Union market if the offer is targeted at consumers in the Union, and an offer counts as targeted if the economic operator directs its activities to one or more member states by any means, with the Regulation applying from 13 December 2024.

Nothing has to be shipped and no entity has to be registered for this to bite, so the decision that pulls a brand into EU law is a marketing decision made by whoever set the ad targeting or added a currency selector.

Exceptions and limits

ThresholdThis Regulation stands back where a sector rule exists
The General Product Safety Regulation applies only insofar as there are no specific provisions with the same objective elsewhere in Union law, and where a product is subject to specific safety requirements it applies only to the aspects and risks those requirements do not cover.
The claim above holds only on one side of this boundary. Confidence 90 of 100.
Wrong if Article 2(1) is amended so that the Regulation applies in full alongside sector legislation, or the Commission states that its safety chapters apply to cosmetics notwithstanding Regulation 1223/2009.
This Regulation applies to products that are placed or made available on the market insofar as there are no specific provisions with the same objective under Union law which regulate the safety of the products concerned. Where products are subject to specific safety requirements imposed by Union law, this Regulation applies only to those aspects and risks or categories of risks which are not covered by those requirements.
Cite as omr:eu:targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu#the-general-rule-yields-to-the-sector-rule

93 of a possible 97Tier A, primary document or measured outcome. Nothing at this tier is allowed past 97, however good it looks.

Verified August 5, 2026Rechecked every 365 days, next by August 5, 2027.

Constraint

Held since December 13, 2024A rule, law or policy that limits what you may do or say. The earliest date we are willing to say this held. It may well have been true before that; we do not backdate a record past the evidence we have read. Supported, version 1.

This entry is wrong if

Article 4 is repealed or amended so that distance sales are assessed by place of dispatch or place of establishment rather than by targeting, or the Regulation’s date of application is shown to be other than 13 December 2024.

Written before the record was published, not after. If you can show this, send it to hello@tryorbt.com and the correction goes on the record with the entry.

Evidence

Tier Aregulation
Publications Office of the European Union: Regulation (EU) 2023/988 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 on general product safety
Article 4 Distance sales. Products offered for sale online or through other means of distance sales shall be deemed to be made available on the market if the offer is targeted at consumers in the Union. An offer for sale shall be considered to be targeted at consumers in the Union if the relevant economic operator directs, by any means, its activities to one or more Member States.
Read 2026-08-05 · Open government · page hash ed8aebab3c82
Tier Aregulation
Publications Office of the European Union: Regulation (EU) 2023/988 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 on general product safety
shall apply from 13 December 2024. This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.
Quoted from the final article rather than from a summary, because the date is the whole operative content of this half of the claim.
Read 2026-08-05 · Open government · page hash ed8aebab3c82

History

v1createdAugust 5, 2026
Initial entry from primary regulator text, read 2026-08-05. The EU text comes from the Publications Office Cellar service under content negotiation, since EUR-Lex is behind a bot challenge we do not work around.
v1createdon a caveatAugust 5, 2026
Initial entry from primary regulator text, read 2026-08-05. The EU text comes from the Publications Office Cellar service under content negotiation, since EUR-Lex is behind a bot challenge we do not work around.

Append-only. Nothing in this list is edited or removed once written, including the entries that record our own mistakes. Every change to every record is on the corrections page, and the same log is in entries.json under revisions.

eu
gpsr
distance-selling
ecommerce
jurisdiction
market-entry
compliance

Cite this entry

“Aiming a website at the EU is placing goods there”, The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0, entry omr:eu:targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu, retrieved September 9, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/eu--targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu. Dataset: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22679129

Orbt, "Aiming a website at the EU is placing goods there," Orbt Market Index, entry omr:eu:targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu, verified August 5, 2026, https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/eu--targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu.

@misc{orbt-eu-targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu,
  title        = {Aiming a website at the EU is placing goods there},
  author       = {{Orbt}},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.22679129},
  note         = {The Orbt Market Index 0.1.0 (dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22679129), entry omr:eu:targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu. Verified 2026-08-05},
  howpublished = {\url{https://tryorbt.com/markets/entry/eu--targeting-eu-consumers-is-selling-in-the-eu}},
  license      = {Orbt Index Public Licence. Free to quote and cite; not to redistribute}
}

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