White Labels - Legal Liability?

[darrenw]

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I have a question about the legal liabilities around white label / co-branded sites.

For example, if I had a site selling mobile phones where the actual phones were dispatched by a third-party, what happens if a customer has a faulty phone? Will I be legally liable for this, as they have purchased the phone in good faith directly via my site?

Even worse, what if the third-party company went bust? Would I have (potentially) hundreds of irate customers beating a path to my door, demanding the phones that never arrived?

White label and co-branding sites appears to be a completely different kettle of fish than affiliate marketing - with affiliate schemes, it is fairly clear (in law) that your site isn't selling anything. It would be like phoning up the advertising agency that made the soap powder advert directly with a complaint if all your clothes turned blue!

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

Has anyone been in a situation where they have ended up being liable, because of their white label site?

Thanks,
Darren (W).

[morleymouse]

Most co-branded sites, eg the why sleep one, the header says "yoursite name, in association with why sleep" then all the contact details, email addresses and phone numbers are for why sleep.

So id say this makes it fairly obvious to anyone who looks a little more than surface deep that its the merchant selling and doing all the trading, not yoursite. And anyone who has problems with products etc will look more than surface deep at contact details, disclaimers etc.

Also it will be the merchant showing up on credit card bills etc so I don't see any problems with this.

[linkyjinx]

I've been thinking about similar stuff lately.
an example:
There's a site called 'mywebagency.com' a branch of Digital Media Solutions that offers a white label. you buy the licence then you can offer loads of different web services via your own company name, it sounds ideal for me, but I have wondered what would happen if the customer wasn't happy with the design of a website they'd paid for - I'd want to get it sorted out as quickly as possible but if the designer and the other end is employed by the main company & not me personally, I'd find it hard to have a 'good row' & get it sorted, as I'm not paying their wages.

outsourcing & dropshipping fall it to this bracket, As I can imagine also of chasing up on these type of accounts.

Saying that, I haven't completely ruled out 'trade only' dropshipping as opposed to the 3rd party accounts for fee's.

I read the Whir which has info on white label services (mainly US hosting, but some have UK branches)
www.whir.com

[Gray]

We are online travel agents and like most others in the travel industry much of our content is white label. Look closely and you will find the vast majority of travel agents use white label solutions including the major sites. Expedia, Opodo etc., where do their holidays and charter flights come from?

We publish our contact details and if clients have a problem we expect them to ring us first not the supplier and we sort out the problem. Personally, I think this is fair as we are the public facing website and it seems reasonable that we get the flack if there are problems, just means we make sure any companies we deal with are not only efficient but also financially stable.

If you go to the local garage and buy a new Ford, Rover, BMW or whatever and have a problem you are going to contact that dealer if you have a problem not the manufacturer.

Unlike normal affy sites if you at the public level appear to be the service provider whether white label or otherwise I think you have to accept responsibility as it is unfair to expect the public to read the terms and understand them. If you are just publishing ads on a site fine, that is like an ad in a newspaper and I think it fair for the public to understand, however when you rebrand a site and sell as XXXXXXXXXXX them I think it is only fair to expect that a client would expect to be dealing with that website and therefore have a case against you should a problem arise.

I am not sure what the legal position is , till its been to court I expect no-one really does, but just think if you went to your local travel agent and booked a holiday, flight or rental car and there was a problem would you on your return contact your local travel agent or go straight to Thomson, Club 18-30, Avis, Hertz or whoever was the ultimate supplier. I know most of our clients contact us first and I am glad they do so that we can sort the problem and ensure that there are as few problems as possible. We dont want people to come back from holiday unhappy and are pleased that they do contact us so that we know the full picture. If we ae not adding anything and expect the client to sort out any problems with the supplier what are we being paid for?

I think there is a major difference between run of the mill affy sites and the white label route. My personal view for what its worth (and that's not a lot) is that once you go white label you become the supplier with all the responsibilites that carries.

[MobilesCoUk]

Will I be legally liable for this, as they have purchased the phone in good faith directly via my site?

With both our Mobiles.co.uk and Gadgets.co.uk White Label sites, the answer is unequivocally no. I would expect other sites to be the same.

Quite simply, at several stages throughout the ordering process, we advise the customer that we will be processing and fulfilling the order on behalf of the partner site.

And most importantly the Terms & Conditions of Business, which all customers have to read and agree to, leave no doubt as to who their contract is with: "for the purposes of the Sale of Goods Act and these terms and conditions, your contract will be with Mobiles Online for the goods ordered ".

[drivetowin]

Gray

Just out of interest in that case are you ABTA registered ?