Fulfilment in online retail: who needs to do what?

Many mail order companies or online retailers commission service providers to ship their goods for them. Read on to learn about the packaging law obligations that apply to fulfilment service providers and what the ordering party needs to know.

What is fulfilment?

When a distributor or seller commissions a service provider to do certain things on their behalf, it is known as fulfilment. These things may include:

Warehouse management
Packing orders
Labelling shipments
Shipping goods to customers

When the service provider assumes at least two of the activities listed without being the owner of the goods, then they are considered a fulfilment service provider under the Verpackungsgesetz (Packaging Act).

Heads-up: Post, parcel delivery or other forwarding agents are considered fulfilment service providers under German packaging law.

When fulfilment service providers pack goods into shipment packaging subject to system participation for the ordering party, it is the ordering party (distributor) who must fulfil the packaging law obligations for that shipment packaging.

Packaging law obligations in fulfilment

For fulfilment service providers (fulfillers)

Fulfilment service providers are required by law to verify that the ordering party

is registered with the LUCID Packaging Register and
meets the system participation requirement by paying for their packaging's recycling.

If an ordering party does not meet their packaging law obligations, the fulfiller must not work for them.

Heads-up: For the ordering party to fully meet their obligations, the fulfilment service provider must inform them of the packaging volumes used to ship the goods. The packaging volumes must be broken down by material type (e.g. paper, paperboard, cardboard).

Fulfilment service providers can check an ordering party’s registration status in the public register. The ZSVR even offers an automated register excerpt.

For companies commissioning fulfillers (ordering parties)

For packaging subject to system participation (retail, grouped or shipment packaging), the following applies:

Register with the LUCID Packaging Register.
Conclude a system participation agreement with one or more system operators.
Regularly report your packaging volumes that are subject to system participation to both your system operator and the LUCID Packaging Register (data reporting).

For packaging that is not subject to system participation, the following applies:

Add additional packaging types when registering with the LUCID Packaging Register.
Comply with return and recovery obligations as per section 15 VerpackG (Packaging Act), if applicable.

Mail order companies and online retailers

Mail order companies and online retailers use shipment packaging to send their goods. They are required to pay for the recycling of this packaging and to check whether they bear responsibility for other packaging as well.

Drop shipping

Drop shippers sell third-party goods for their own account by forwarding the orders and having these goods shipped directly to customers. Drop shippers never touch the goods themselves.

Registration

Every company that distributes packaged good commercially on the German market or imports packaged goods into Germany has to register with the LUCID Packaging Register, regardless of where in the world that company is based.

System participation & data reporting

The following obligations apply to packaging subject to system participation: you will need to register with the LUCID Packaging Register, conclude a system participation agreement and regularly report packaging volumes (data reporting).

Please refer to the support contact page for more information.

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