We sell to the public, and every new channel seems to bring a set of rules nobody told us about.
Selling to consumers carries obligations that do not apply business to business: cancellation rights, pre-contract information, terms that must be fair to be enforceable, and marketing rules that changed again this year. We own the paper and the process so growth does not create exposure behind it. The pattern is consistent across consumer businesses of every size. The terms were written once, for one channel, usually by somebody adapting a template found online. Then a marketplace was added, then a concession, then a subscription, then a wholesale line, and each of those brought its own paper and its own obligations. Nothing was ever consolidated, because nothing had gone wrong yet.
Dinmore Bell acts as the outsourced General Counsel for consumer-facing businesses: terms and conditions, returns and cancellation rights, supplier and concession agreements, marketing compliance and the disputes that follow. It is a retained function on a fixed monthly fee, not an hourly instruction.
How we own it
Terms that are actually enforceable
A consumer term that is unfair is not merely criticised, it is unenforceable, which means the clause you rely on is not there when you need it. We write terms that hold, in language a customer can follow. The clauses that fail are predictable. Limitations of liability drafted for a business counterparty. Automatic renewal provisions where the notice period is longer than the cancellation window. Charges described as administration fees that are really penalties. Terms buried in a document nobody was required to see before paying. Each of those is a clause a business believes it has and does not. The test that matters is whether a term creates a significant imbalance to the consumer’s detriment, and transparency is part of it: a term that is genuinely prominent and plainly worded survives scrutiny that an identical term in small print does not. We draft for that test rather than for maximum protection on paper, because a clause that is struck out protects nothing at all.
Every channel, one set of paper
Marketplace, concession, wholesale, direct and franchise arrangements each carry different terms and usually accumulate separately. We bring them into one structure so a change of price or policy does not need six negotiations. The cost of not doing this is rarely a legal problem first. It shows up as commercial paralysis: a pricing change that cannot be implemented because three of the five channels have most-favoured-nation clauses, or a product recall that has to be run five different ways because the recall obligations differ in each contract. We map the estate, identify which terms genuinely have to differ by channel and which merely do, and rebuild it as one set with defined variations. The register is the deliverable as much as the drafting: a single list of every counterparty, what it is entitled to, when it renews and what notice it needs.
Returns, cancellation and the distance selling rules
Online and off-premises sales carry statutory cancellation rights that sit on top of whatever your returns policy says, and the two are frequently inconsistent. Where they conflict, the statutory right wins and the policy is the thing that looks dishonest. The detail matters more than the headline. When the cancellation period starts and what stops it running, what pre-contract information has to be given and in what form, who pays return carriage, what happens to a service already partly performed, and which goods are genuinely exempt. Getting the information requirements wrong can extend a fourteen-day right by months. We write the policy and the terms together so they say the same thing, and we write them in the language the customer service team will actually use. A policy that the team cannot apply without asking is a policy that gets applied inconsistently, which is how a single complaint becomes a pattern.
Marketing, claims and influencers
Advertising rules reach further than most consumer businesses assume, and they reach the brand rather than the agency. Comparative claims, environmental claims, pricing and savings claims, reviews and endorsements, and paid content that is not obviously paid are the recurring problems. Green claims are the sharpest current risk. A claim about recycled content, carbon or sustainability now has to be substantiated to a standard most marketing teams have never been asked to meet, and the substantiation has to exist before the claim runs rather than after a challenge. Influencer and affiliate arrangements are the other. The obligation to disclose a commercial relationship sits with both parties, and enforcement lands on the brand because the brand is the one with assets. We write the contracts, the disclosure requirements and the sign-off process, and we keep the evidence pack for claims that are likely to be questioned.
Complaints before they become claims
A complaints process that resolves the resolvable quickly and identifies the small number that need a firmer answer, with the correspondence written as though a regulator may one day read it. Most consumer disputes are cheap to settle and expensive to argue. The skill is in separating those from the ones where settling sets a precedent the business cannot afford, or where the complaint is the visible part of a systemic problem that will produce forty more. That triage is a legal judgement made on commercial grounds, and it is the part a customer service function cannot be expected to make alone. We write the escalation policy, handle the correspondence on the matters that escalate, and report the pattern back: which product, which channel, which clause. The point of owning complaints is not to win them. It is to find out what the business is doing wrong before somebody else does.
Suppliers, concessions and the terms behind the shelf
Consumer businesses are judged on the paper facing the customer and undone by the paper facing the supplier. Product liability, indemnities, recall obligations, intellectual property warranties and exclusivity all sit upstream, and all of them decide what happens when something goes wrong downstream. The question we ask first is whether liability flows through. If a supplier’s product injures a customer or breaches a regulation, does the contract put that cost where it belongs, and is the supplier insured for it? Frequently the answer is that the terms were the supplier’s, accepted without amendment, and they do not. Concession and retail-partner agreements deserve the same attention. Commission structures, shrinkage, stock ownership, data rights over the customers the partner introduces, and the exit terms when the relationship ends are the clauses that decide whether a channel is profitable or merely busy.
Where specialists come in
Trading Standards investigations, prosecutions and any matter before a court or tribunal are conducted by regulated specialists whom we instruct and coordinate. Advice on regulated consumer credit, on financial promotions, and on product safety enforcement is taken from appropriately authorised advisers. We hold the budget and remain accountable for the outcome.
Services we run here
- Are our website terms enforceable if the customer never read them?
- They have to be brought to the customer’s attention before the contract is made, and the more onerous the term the more prominent it must be. Terms accessible only after checkout are routinely unenforceable.
- Can we limit our liability to consumers?
- Only within limits. Liability for death or personal injury from negligence and for the core statutory rights on goods and services cannot be excluded, and broad exclusions drafted for business contracts generally fail when used with consumers.
- How long is the cancellation period for online orders?
- Fourteen days from delivery for goods in most cases, but it runs only once the required pre-contract information has been given. Where that information is incomplete, the period can extend by up to a year.
- Who is responsible if an influencer fails to label a post?
- In practice both, and enforcement tends to reach the brand. The contract should require disclosure, and the sign-off process should check it before the post runs rather than after.
- Do we need different terms for each sales channel?
- Different in the places the channel genuinely requires, identical everywhere else. Unmanaged divergence between channels is what makes a simple pricing or policy change into a multi-party negotiation.
- What happens if a supplier’s product has to be recalled?
- The contract decides who pays and who notifies. Where supplier terms were accepted unamended, the cost usually falls on the seller facing the customer, which is why upstream indemnities and insurance are checked before a problem arises.
- Do you handle consumer claims and ombudsman correspondence?
- Yes. Dinmore Bell owns the correspondence and the strategy on escalated complaints. Where proceedings are issued, litigators are instructed and controlled rather than the matter being handed over.
- Is this an hourly arrangement?
- No. It is a retained function on a fixed monthly fee, scoped on a Scope Analysis call, so that asking a question does not carry a cost and the paper gets read before it is signed.