The number of buyers and sellers who make their wine purchases on the internet - be it via larger online wine senders, small winery online shops or via auction platforms such as eBay in particular - is still growing rapidly. What does not go hand in hand with this development is the knowledge of the parties involved about their rights and obligations in online trade.
This article is intended to raise the consumer's awareness, while at the same time pointing out to suppliers their obligations.
1. When does the special consumer protection apply?
As with all transactions with commercial sellers, the consumer also enjoys special protection when buying wine online. In order to circumvent this, some sellers, especially on eBay, call themselves private sellers, although they are obviously entrepreneurs. Entrepreneur is not only the one who achieves his main income through online business, but also the one who achieves more or less regularly considerable turnovers through this in secondary activity. If the seller regularly offers goods of the same assortment and the number of previous evaluations is very high (e.g. more than 100 in the last 2 months) or if he is even a so-called power seller, he can be regarded as an entrepreneur.