4.4 EU域内に設立されたフルフィルメントサービス提供者

A fulfilment service provider is a natural or legal person offering at least two of the following services in the course of commercial activity, without having ownership of the products involved:

—warehousing,

—packaging,

—addressing, and

—dispatching.

The qualifying services do not include postal services (43), parcel delivery services (44) or any other postal or freight transport services (Article 3 of the Regulation).

Fulfilment service providers normally warehouse products in the EU, so that they can be swiftly delivered to EU consumers or other end-users as soon as they are ordered online. Thus, they provide services to other economic operators. On receiving an order, they package the product (unless it is already properly packaged for transport), affix the delivery address and dispatch it, either handing it over to a postal, parcel or transport service or delivering it themselves.

There is a wide range of operating scenarios for fulfilment services, but as described here they go beyond those of postal/parcel service providers (i.e. clearance and the sorting, transport and delivery of parcels). Where a natural or legal person offers both fulfilment services and postal/parcel delivery or freight transport services, Article 4 could be of relevance only in respect of the products handled by its fulfilment services.

Fulfilment service providers established in the EU are the economic operator referred to in Article 4 for products they handle in cases where there is no manufacturer, importer or authorised representative in the EU for those products. Therefore, before agreeing to provide the fulfilment service for a product covered by Article 4, they should verify with their client whether there is already one of the other types of economic operator in the EU for that product. If not, they will be the economic operator referred to in Article 4.

The sector-specific legislation does not refer to fulfilment service providers. Therefore, when acting as the economic operator referred to in Article 4, they will need to make arrangements with their clients to ensure that, before agreeing to provide the service, they receive from the client, or directly from the manufacturer, the means to fulfil the obligations, in particular:

—the declaration of conformity/performance for the products in question, and

—assurances of cooperation to help them carry out other tasks, such as:

—providing technical documentation, and

—taking corrective action when requested by the authorities.

The client should make sure that the service provider’s name and contact details are indicated on or with the product, unless the manufacturer has already done so. The client can do this itself or have someone do it for them before the product is declared for free circulation at customs (see Section 2.3).

As with importers, there can be multiple fulfilment service providers for a given type of product. Each is the economic operator referred to in Article 4 for, and will have to have its name and contact details on or with, the units that it handles.

The manufacturer can appoint a fulfilment service provider as its authorised representative. In such cases, the parts of these guidelines concerning authorised representatives are relevant instead.