It’s GDPR Day and there’s one thing that online ecommerce merchants should remember

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At Tamebay we’ve been writing about GDPR for months trying to get to grips with what it might mean in the future and how it might impact online merchants, especially those selling on marketplaces. The most recent and most useful piece was called: The 7 GDPR requirements and rights.

And we’ll cheerfully admit that some of the implications regarding GDPR weren’t always immediately obviously and entirely clear and the actions that commerce merchants would need to take were also hazy. The mist has cleared a bit over time but we shan’t understand the full power of the new regulations until we start seeing the first rulings from the information commissioner.

And one thing we certainly didn’t predict was the bombardment of emails from all sorts of organisations in the past week or so begging that we opt in to their emailing list. And over the past few days the pleading has become ever more shrill and desperate and the delight in deleting those emails without response has been palpable for many.

You’ll doubtless have seen people on social media wryly noting that they hope this new law will have a beneficial impact on their inbox volumes as dozens of regular marketing emails will be stripped out of the daily onslaught. (We hope that doesn’t include Tamebay and out vital messages.)

This bizarre email bombardment from companies seeking to preserve their mailing lists is certainly not what the regulations are intended to achieve. It’s also worth wondering whether a reiteration of a previous positive opt-in by a subscriber is required. And, perhaps most perversely, why have so many bodies left it until the 11th hour to urge us to stay in touch? This change has been on the cards for quite some time.

But today’s the day and midnight has passed: 25th May 2018 and GDPR comes into force. So what is the one thing that online merchants like you need to know?

You are still permitted to contact buyers freely when your contact relates to a transaction.

It’s simple but crucial.

2 Responses

  1. There’s only one reason such a vast number of companies left it until the 11th hour. Anyone with experience in email marketing knew opt-in rates would be horrendously low, so wanted to keep that subscriber list as long as physically possible!!

  2. one thing that any business must remember
    if you stick to all and every rule all of the time
    you will most certainly not survive

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