The Resilient Retail Game Plan Episode 263

The £170 Mistake Product Retail Business Owners Need To Avoid!

Podcast show notes

Ever felt that gut-wrenching “what if”? Like, what if one slip could sink everything you’ve worked for? You’re not alone. Most indie product retail business owners lie awake worrying about cash flow or sales, but legal mistakes can feel like something only ‘big’ companies need to stress about. But a £170 mistake (a missed legal step) can easily wipe out months or years of work, seemingly overnight.

Episode Snapshot: What You’ll Learn

In this episode of The Resilient Retail Game Plan podcast, I sat down with Lucy Wheeler, founder of Lucy Legal, to talk through the legal blind spots that cost independent retailers and ecommerce brands thousands. We’re digging into the nuts and bolts of refund policies, trademarks, contracts, and the sneaky new rules around AI and product safety. More than that, we zero in on those “wish I’d known” moments you only hear about from someone who’s been there.

If you’re ready for clear, actionable info (not legalese), read on, or click play on the player below (or image below that).

We’ll break it down together.

 

The Resilient Retail Game Plan lander poster


Why Legal Protection Isn’t Just for “Big” Brands

Let’s start by getting one thing straight: protecting your product business isn’t just a box to tick once you hit six figures. It’s a fundamental, whether you’re running your shop out of a spare room or planning your next stock order to scale. Here’s why.

The Cost of Ignoring Legal Basics

Lucy shared the story of a founder who, right before a long-awaited launch, was hit with a cease and desist. The entire spare room was stacked with branded stock—all the founder’s savings wrapped up in a brand name she thought was safe. Except it wasn’t. She’d never checked the trademark, and a simple £170 registration could have saved her thousands (not to mention the heartbreak).

How many of us have been tempted to “just start selling,” only to plug in a refund policy copied from someone else’s site, never thinking twice about whether it fits our products? The problem with this “I’m too small for legal” mindset is you don’t realise you need it—until the crisis hits. And by then, as Lucy put it, “there isn’t anything I can do to help them, really, if someone else has got that trademark registered.”

The “Information for Action” Takeaway

If you think small means safe, think again. The most common legal pitfalls are right at the start:

  • Sending products without a refund policy compliant with consumer laws
  • Using brand names without any trademark search
  • Forgetting data privacy or copying terms you don’t understand

Don’t let “I’m just testing this” be your undoing. You wouldn’t skip insurance on your stock—why gamble with something that could tank the whole business?


Nailing the Essentials: Refunds, Terms, and Trademarks

So what do you actually need, right now, to keep your business safe (and potentially help it grow)?

Refund Policies: More Than a Nicety

A refund policy isn’t just a “nice to have” – if you’re selling to consumers in the UK, it’s legal requirement. Here’s the kicker: if you don’t tell customers their rights, they can request a refund up to a year and a day later (instead of the standard 14 days for distance selling). Imagine the surprise charge-backs – not great for cash flow.

Lucy recommends thinking about refunds with these five questions:

  • Who’s buying (consumer vs. business)
  • What are they buying (bespoke, standard, high-value)
  • When did they buy (timing affects their rights)
  • How was it bought (online orders have different rules vs in-person)
  • Why do they want a return (fault, change of mind, error)

Building a refund process that’s both legal and fits your brand? That’s how brands turn a compliance box-tick into a trust-builder.

Terms, Privacy, and the Extras

Alongside your refund policy, you need:

  • Clear, comprehensive sales terms and conditions
  • A privacy notice (GDPR still matters, even years on)
  • If you use AI (for content or data), an AI statement’s increasingly expected

Quick example: if you’re using AI tools to handle customer information, you need to be open and compliant about it. Don’t let those “I’ll sort it later” jobs be the holes in your safety net.

Trademarks: The Real £170 Insurance

If I could wave a magic wand for every new product business, I’d grant them a registered trademark. The cost? As little as £170 if you do it yourself in one class. The peace of mind? Priceless.

Trademarking means you don’t end up in Lucy’s story above, staring at a spare room of unsellable stock with your bank balance drained. Even if you’re “just on Etsy,” start how you mean to go on. Remember: “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is reality”—but if a legal snag wipes out everything, all of that hard work is for nothing.


Don’t Get Blindsided by New Rules: AI, Product Safety, and Team

Just as you get your head around refunds and trademarks, along comes a wave of new legal headaches for indie brands. Here’s what’s changed—and how to keep up, even if you hate paperwork as much as I do.

AI and Data Protection: It’s Not Just Tech Giants

The new EU AI Act and tighter GDPR enforcement mean that if you’re using AI—even if it’s just handling emails, marketing content or data—you’ve got responsibilities. Lucy’s advice? Be clear about what you’re using AI for, keep customer data safe, and update your privacy info. She’s even put together an AI Legal Toolkit for small business owners (“always updated, no hidden extras”—very much my kind of resource).

Product Safety (GPSR): The Quiet Curveball

If you sell to the EU or Northern Ireland, the General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) now require a safety technical file for every product, and possibly an EU representative. Sound overwhelming? You’re not alone. Even government sources were late getting practical info out.

Here’s the reality: You likely already have most of what’s needed via your testing and compliance paperwork. It’s about gathering it together and presenting it properly, not reinventing the wheel.

Growing A Team: Don’t Skip the Boring Stuff

As you scale, don’t fall into the “it’ll be fine” trap with people contracts, policies, and outsourcing agreements. From grievance procedures to staff handbooks—even if you only employ yourself—it’s all essential. Freelancers can be a great bridge as you build, and having flexible contracts and clear boundaries makes this transition a lot less stressful (or expensive).


‘Information for Action’ Recap: Your Legal Essentials Checklist

You don’t need to solve everything overnight, but these are must-dos for any product business (no matter the size):

  • Do a trademark search and register your name (£170 now saves thousands later)
  • Publish a clear, legally-compliant refund policy (no copy-paste jobs)
  • Write sales terms and conditions tailored to your business and products
  • Update your privacy notice for GDPR (and AI, if relevant)
  • If using AI in your business, declare it and check data safety measures
  • For EU/NI selling: Assemble product safety files and sort representation
  • As you hire, use professional contracts (even if employing yourself)

Pick one to do today. Progress trumps perfection, every single time.


Ready To Make Your Retail Business More Resilient?

If this episode has you thinking, “It’s time I shored up my foundations,” you’re in good company. The best brands aren’t necessarily the loudest or even the most creative—they’re the ones who’ve quietly ticked all the right legal boxes, so they can focus on selling, scaling, and thriving.

Want more real-world product business advice, war stories, and clear checklists?
Listen to the full episode of the Resilient Retail Game Plan podcast and follow for weekly strategies that break down bigger problems into bite-sized next steps.

If you’re not already in the Club, come join us at the Resilient Retail Club – because no independent retailer should have to figure it all out alone.

About the featured guest

Lucy Wheeler

Founder
Lucy Legal
Lucy is a qualified UK solicitor who specialises in supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners to legally protect their businesses.

Interested in being a guest or sponsor of The Resilient Retail Game Plan?

Drop us an email to let us know why you think you’d be a great fit for our audience of small businesses and independent retail brands

Lucy Wheeler [00:00:00]:
It was the Friday evening she got a cease and desist from a company in America. I think it was like 3:30. She was going to launch on the morning, on the Saturday morning. And she said the whole spare room is full of branded stock. I’ve put all of my savings into this. And I was like, well, we can try and agree something with them, but given the rights that they have and what that brand is, there’s no way they’re going to agree.

Catherine Edley [00:00:25]:
It could a simple £170 trademark save your business from disaster. Today we’re uncovering the legal blind spots that could cost you thousands. Welcome to the resilient retail game Plan. I’m Catherine Edley and in the next few minutes you’re about to get powerful real world retail strategies from insights shared both from my guests and myself, backed up by my 25 years in the retail industry. Keep listening to learn how to grow a thriving, profitable product business. Let’s jump in with this latest episode. In this episode, I’m joined by Lucy Wheeler, founder of Lucy Legal, and we’re diving into the essential legal protections every product business needs. From refund policies that build trust to trademarks that protect your brand, we’re talking about the practical steps that keep your business safe and even help it grow.

Catherine Edley [00:01:24]:
So let’s kick off then, Lucy, with having a think about blind spots. So what are some of the biggest legal blind spots that product business owners overlook and how can they avoid them?

Lucy Wheeler [00:01:36]:
The idea that you actually have to protect yourself with the legal elements of your business. And what I mean by that is a lot of people, especially when they’re starting out, they think I’m too small. It’s only reserved for bigger people. It’s not really the right time for me to do this. I can’t invest in this. And I think that that can be a really big blind spot for product business owners where they think, oh, I’m only just selling here, I’m only just doing a bit on Etsy, I’ve only got one product. And I think that it’s a mentality feeling of whether you are running a sort of a business as a hobby. But even if you are doing it as a hobby and it’s just some passion project that you have, you still need to legally protect your business because you don’t want to get on the wrong side of things.

Lucy Wheeler [00:02:16]:
And by that I mean if something bad happens. So if something does happen, say for example, someone asks you for a refund, you don’t want to then suddenly think, oh my goodness, I don’t have any terms or I don’t even know what I’m meant to be doing. I’ve copied and pasted my refund policy from someone else’s website, but I don’t actually know how it works in practice. And I think that can be one of the big things. People either they just completely bury their head in the sand when it comes to legal, or they do get something and it’s potentially a copy and paste job from something else. And people sort of have a little look around, find some terms, and they don’t work through how that’s going to look in practice. In terms of if someone’s asking for a refund and they either do they need to return the product, how is that going to work? Are they going to send photos to you first? Will you accept photos? Will your approach be the same for every single type of product you sell? Is there a different type of threshold in terms of price point? So if you’ve got a more expensive product, do you want that back? Like, are you going to want to examine the product before you give someone a refund? Do you want to send the product back to a manufacturer? Is there an off avenue for you to be able to get money back? It’s all of those kind of questions probably when I’m talking it through now, people are nodding along going, oh, yeah, of course, of course, that’s really obvious. But you don’t necessarily think of those things.

Catherine Edley [00:03:33]:
No, that’s such a great point about how when people are first starting out, they just think, oh, it’s not really something that applies to me. I don’t really need worry about that. But you’re interacting with all kinds of consumer laws just by simply sending products out, right?

Lucy Wheeler [00:03:45]:
Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things that people don’t realize is that having a refund policy is a legal requirement if you are selling to consumers. So you don’t actually have to have a full set of sales terms. You don’t have to cover every single element off. Obviously, my recommendation definitely would be that you do that. But the key thing is that you tell people about their right to a refund and something that a lot of people don’t know this. If you don’t tell a consumer about their right to a refund, they can request one from you up to a year and a day later. You know, that initial phase where people have, if it’s distant selling, you have 14 days to change your mind, which we can talk to in a moment as well, that actually Just continues to apply if you haven’t told them about their right to a refund.

Lucy Wheeler [00:04:26]:
So you have that for a whole day. So it may be that you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, but because you didn’t tell them about their rights, they have this default right. So you definitely want to be closing that off. And when I’m saying about the 14 days rule, that sometimes applies, but it doesn’t always apply. And I think when it comes to refunds, you have to know how to handle them and you have to be confident. And it might feel overwhelming at the start, but it is relatively simple in that you just need to understand the who, what, when, where and why of refunds. So it’s who you’re selling to, because it differs if it’s businesses or consumers, what they’re buying, when they bought, how they bought from you, because if they purchased in person, it’s different refund rights to if they purchased online. And why they’re asking for a refund.

Lucy Wheeler [00:05:13]:
Because obviously defective products have a different set of legislation that go with them, rather than they’ve changed their mind or you’ve done something because you did a bespoke piece and you spelled something wrong. For example, the why matters as well. So all of those components might send you off on a different track as to whether or not you have to give people a refund based on the answer to those questions. When you’re considering that who, what, when, where and why. And also it might be that you think people listening are thinking, wow, okay, we’re right in at the deep end here. There’s a lot I’m not even really sure I even understand where I would be on if someone asked me for a refund on those questions. But it’s working out what your policy is, making sure that that’s legally compliant. So you have to do the bare minimum, but then also working out what is it that reflects your brand, what is it that you want to do, what is going to work best for your business.

Lucy Wheeler [00:06:00]:
So when I was saying, then it might be that you think if something’s 10 pounds or less or 20 pounds or less, you’re not going to ask people to return it, because that’s just annoying. The value isn’t there for the time it’s going to take. It may be that you will extend timelines for people in terms of, you know, the 14 days. I’ve seen lots of brands do really great job for new parents where they say, look, if there’s a problem with it or you need a refund if it doesn’t fit. And you’ve missed that first 14 days. Get another 14 days on us. Because life is busy when you’ve got young children and you know, like that fits in with their brand values of supporting parents and things. And as a mum of two small children, so I kind of know that mayhem of being like, oh no, we’ve got to get this back to the post office kind of thing.

Lucy Wheeler [00:06:43]:
They then basically use that idea of how can we best support our clients. And even if you don’t do it, so even if you’re like, oh no, I do need to send that back and you get it back on time, just you reading that as a customer, they get me. I love this about them. And all you kind of then would tell your friends, oh, they’re really great because they have this and they help with this or they’ll give you a credit voucher if you send it back or whatever. Do you know, like, it makes you feel a certain way about a brand. And I think that’s what I love the most about supporting business owners is because legal can feel confusing, overwhelming, scary, boring maybe, but only if you’re doing it in a way where you’re just burying turns on the footer of a website. If you’re just copying pasting things and you don’t really get into the detail of it, it’s going to feel like that. But if you can find a way to be like, hang on a second, I can use this thing that I have to do, I have to comply, I have to have a refund policy.

Lucy Wheeler [00:07:34]:
I can actually make it part of my business and actually help me to bring in customers and help them to like us as a brand, then that’s doing legal in a really great way.

Catherine Edley [00:07:49]:
So we talked about the refund policy, but what other essential legal documents or agreements should businesses have in place from the get go?

Lucy Wheeler [00:07:57]:
I always say to people, make sure you’ve got a gold standard set of terms. So whatever it is, however you’re selling, make sure you’ve covered everything off in your terms and conditions. So if you are selling online, you’ve got a really great set of terms, sales terms and conditions that cover everything off. And that obviously would include your refund policy. In addition to that, you need to have a privacy statement. That’s a legal requirement as well. And even more so now linked to that is potentially a statement on AI. So how you’re using AI that’s applicable to your business may not be so much for product based businesses, but it may be because you might be using it in your marketing.

Lucy Wheeler [00:08:34]:
And then the other thing that I think is really important to at least understand from an early stage, if you don’t get one right at the beginning, is trademarks and the brand protection. So really understanding the concepts around intellectual property, I know that people hear that go intellectual property ip like switch off. But it’s so important to at least have the basics that you understand so you don’t do anything wrong, you don’t infringe on someone else’s designs or products and that you know how your brand is protected as well.

Catherine Edley [00:09:05]:
That is really key because also you don’t want to be putting time and effort into building something. For example, I’ve had somebody on the podcast before who built their brand up and then had to change the name because they tried to trademark it. They realized, oh, hang on a minute, I should get trademark. And then it was disputed and they had to completely rebrand. And I think that is such an interesting one that people again think, oh, it’s not really relevant to me, I’m so small. But at some point you don’t want to end up with a cease and desist letter from somebody else saying that you’re using their trademark either, right?

Lucy Wheeler [00:09:36]:
Yeah, exactly. And I think that the piece that people don’t realize is that in the UK you can trademark from as little as 170 pounds. That’s the smallest amount it can cost in terms of your application fees. And yes, it’s possibly better to try and get some help and support with them. And you might want to either do a course or get someone to walk you through the process so you’ve got the correct protection. But even if you don’t really know what you’re doing and you just do a bit of research yourself, getting an application in to protect the name from a baseline, that you’ve got some kind of protection and you put in a 170 application for like one class that’s going to stand in good stead. So I feel like it’s heartbreaking for me. I get really invested in a lot of people’s businesses, but to have been on the other side, you know when people call and they say, I really need your help.

Lucy Wheeler [00:10:21]:
This has happened similar to the previous guest. It’s awful to hear someone saying, well, hang on a second. So there’s nothing I can do now. And there isn’t by that point, there isn’t anything you can, that I can do to help them, really, if someone else has got that trademark registered and they are using that name and they haven’t got permission and they’re like, oh, I wish I’d done this from the start. And I think, oh gosh, I just need to amplify my voice and what I do more, I suppose in my business. But yeah, it’s heartbreaking.

Catherine Edley [00:10:47]:
Yeah. If, if you decide on a name and you want to trade with it, then you need to protect it.

Lucy Wheeler [00:10:53]:
Definitely. And I think it’s just because the costs associated as well with rebranding, especially for product based businesses. It’s bad when it’s a service based business, but it’s even worse with products. I’ve had somebody, they were literally about to launch and that’s how they were found about it. It was the Friday evening she got a cease and desist from a company in America. I think it was like 3:30. She was gonna launch on the morning, on the Saturday morning. And she said, but all of the stock is in my spare room.

Lucy Wheeler [00:11:19]:
The whole spare room is full of branded stock. And she’s like, but I’ve put all of my savings into this. And I was like, well, it’s so awful. I was like, we can try and agree something with them, but given the rights that they have and what that brand is, there’s no way they’re going to agree it. So I was just, it was awful and really, really heartbreaking. And then she was in tears on the phone. And it just, it’s so avoidable as well. That’s what’s annoying, is it? You can prevent that happening to you is annoying if it happens and it’s sort of somebody sending one and it’s a similar type of name and there are disputes when it isn’t avoidable, but ones like that where it is avoidable, that’s really frustrating.

Catherine Edley [00:12:02]:
I want to talk a little bit more about AI because this is a relatively new development, right?

Lucy Wheeler [00:12:07]:
Yes. So in terms of having an AI policy, the biggest thing about this is how it’s linked with GDPR and protecting client data. The EU AI act came into force in 2024, so there’s already a piece of legislation covering what you can and can’t do or what you will be able to do. Because a lot of the implementation of that is coming out in phases. But the biggest thing that people don’t realize is that whilst they might be thinking, well, there’s not a lot in it that applies to me as a small business owner yet everything that relates to the use of AI is caught by gdpr. There’s a huge amount of it where you have to protect people’s data and people’s information. So if you’re running spreadsheets and running like any sort of data and analysis and using AI tools to do it, then you potentially need to be making relevant disclosures to your community to let them know.

Catherine Edley [00:12:54]:
So that is something that you, I believe you have a toolkit on this because it’s something that’s kind of crept up and caught a lot of people by surprise.

Lucy Wheeler [00:13:01]:
Yeah, we do. And we’ve got videos and sort of a how to and how it’s going to potentially impact you and your business, walking you through the key issues and the key areas and yeah, it’s called the AI legal toolkit and it’s been really interesting because a lot of people sort of say, oh well, I’m only using it for content or I’m only using it in this way. Is it still going to apply? It’s so fast paced. And one of the changes that’s happening in August of 2025 is that there’s going to be a new body like so somebody in the UK that’s going to have to be responsible for managing a lot of the development of AI and then like sort of compliance side of it. So there potentially is going to be even more. So we said to everybody, look, if you’ve got our legal toolkit, we will support you every step of the way and every change that comes up. And the same way that we do with all of our legal templates is that we keep everything up to date. So you sort of buy a template or a product from us, we always update it, no extra cost.

Lucy Wheeler [00:13:53]:
So that’s something that we’ve always been committed to as a brand, just helping people. Because everybody’s busy, aren’t they? Like you don’t have to keep updating everything.

Catherine Edley [00:14:01]:
Yes, absolutely. And I think that that’s the thing, especially for product businesses. We’ve had so many things, I mean gdpr, remember when that came in and GPSR and all of those new requirements and it feels like constantly having to jump through hoops and people just don’t have time. They just need to know what they need to do to be compliant. Like everybody wants to be compliant. Love to talk a little bit about how legal protections evolve then as you grow. So we talked about what you need to have in place from the get go, things like your returns policy, things like getting your name trademarked. But as somebody grows, let’s say they’re moving from a one person startup to say six figure business, then how do their legal protections need to evolve along with that.

Lucy Wheeler [00:14:44]:
This is where you need to look at not only your own contracts and the contracts that you might have with team, whether that might be yours or something from them, but also beginning to really push back on supplier agreements and to really start examining those. And I think that’s the big shift. So when you are a one man band and you’re doing everything yourself, you almost just have to accept everything that comes to you in terms of like everybody’s a lot bigger than you, their lead times, their payment terms, all of those kind of things. You don’t have as much leverage to push back and you don’t necessarily have as much experience. Obviously, if you feel confident to in the early days, then do push back. But I think that the biggest shift when you’re sort of scaling and growing your business is to look at the contracts of other people when you’re working with their suppliers and things, and then push for more advantageous terms that work better for you and your business. People don’t do that. And you sort of as well think, well, I’ll maintain the status quo because we’ve worked at them for a long time.

Lucy Wheeler [00:15:38]:
But it’s worth reviewing everything and seeing whether you can get things that work in a better way for you. Because as we all know, like cash flow is everything. Even when you’re hitting six figures, it’s still key. And it only takes like one supplier or one issue to happen to knock the whole supply chain. So if you can review the terms and get more advantageous way for you, then I definitely look at doing that. The team thing is the big thing. I think as you growing out a team, you have to look at the terms and conditions that you’re going to have for that and whether you’re going to employ somebody or work with people freelance having contracts that don’t necessarily tie you in for long periods of time. So if you are sort of stuck stepping into the world of getting more support is saying, I’m going to have a month where I’m going to test working with somebody.

Lucy Wheeler [00:16:22]:
And whilst they might say it’s a minimum three month term, it’s a minimum six month term to work with someone, you say, well actually at the start I just want to test this out for a month because it’s actually a huge learning curve. When you start letting other people into the business and start getting support from other people. And that’s when you may then think, actually I don’t want to run the business in this way. I don’t want to spend all my time doing approvals or give this away to someone and testing it, I think over a short period of time. And even if you do it for months and then say okay, like now we’ll have three months instead of thinking, oh gosh, now I’ve got this really big outgoing that I didn’t really want to have. And again, it’s that cash flow piece that can really damage business in the short term.

Catherine Edley [00:17:04]:
I have to say probably one of the biggest stresses that I see people dealing with as their business grows is issues with staff as well. So what do you think about things like grievance or disciplinary policies and things like that from when you start adding.

Lucy Wheeler [00:17:16]:
People in, it is the biggest headache, isn’t it with, with team? And it’s really hard. And it’s obviously if you’re an employing a team, then you have to understand that that’s a whole host of again, mandatory legislation. So if, even if you’ve employed yourself, another thing that people don’t realize is you meant to have an employment contract if you’re a director and you’re employing yourself in your business. So make sure you’ve got that in place. But you then have to have all the policies and the agreements you say handle issues for grievances and you have to have handbooks in place. And that’s why I think it really helps with our legal templates because we do all of that job for you. But at the same time, even with a template, you have to work out how you’re going to handle these issues and how you want the business to run. And a lot of people I think think, oh, the only way I can get help is if I’m going to employ someone now.

Lucy Wheeler [00:17:59]:
And then if I’m employing people, I’ve got payroll, I’ve got a pension or pension opt outs, all of those things. But you can get freelancers, you can get people who will be dedicated to your business, who will help you. And it may take you a while to find the right one, the right fit. But that can sometimes be better than necessarily getting someone part time employed within the business. It can help you test it at least in the short term to see if it’s something that’s going to work for you and the way you run your business. Because it’s hard for me, because I see it obviously from the side when things go wrong with everything, with all of the legal side of things. But I know even just not from the legal side, just speaking to other people who run their own businesses, that that is the hardest part as you said, managing team, finding the right support around you and getting people to do it in the way that you want to do it and sort of that acceptance that is it your brand value that done is better than perfect, or does it need to be done your way and actually realizing that when you take on a team, you’re actually going to have more work in the short term. Depending on how you set your business up, you might be needing to create standard operating procedures, which, I mean, I know my lawyer, but I find all of those things so boring.

Lucy Wheeler [00:19:02]:
Do you know, like writing down this is what we do and if this happens, this is what we do. And it’s just in order to be able to give those tasks away to somebody else, you have to have told people like your processes and things. And for most entrepreneurs, they wing it, don’t they? They decide, they go like, oh, this is how I launch or this is how I do this, or this is how this campaign runs. And you just kind of decide it how it feels good then to have to write it down kind of ruins all of that.

Catherine Edley [00:19:27]:
That’s why I’m a big fan of the documenting it on a video do screen recording. So this is how you do this and then you do it. You had to do it anyway. Now just recording yourself, doing it.

Lucy Wheeler [00:19:36]:
If you’ve got your eye on the fact that you. That might be the next phase for you. I think it was worthwhile doing all of those kind of tasks even before you’re ready by setting yourself up to outsource is start by recording some of those things. And I think also remembering that you don’t have to outsource in your business. This might sound a bit of a curveball on this type of podcast, but sometimes when you need more time, you can outsource successfully in your own life to give you more time. And that feels a little bit easier if you are in this limbo period. So where you’re at, the period where you’re like, okay, now I’m going to start filming myself and getting myself ready to hire someone. I need to find the right person.

Lucy Wheeler [00:20:13]:
I don’t know if it’s going to be employment or freelancer, and in the meantime in your private life, getting food ordered in that gets delivered to your door, or getting a cleaner or those kind of things. As a small business owner, it might sound, as I say, a bit unusual to say it, but it frees up your time to work on the business. Not only you can clean your house, even though you might love doing it, and that can help as well, just to get over that bridge of things being difficult and having no time. Because it’s hard when you’re wearing all of the hats, isn’t it?

Catherine Edley [00:20:40]:
Yeah, it’s one of those things that especially as people grow, often talk to them about what has to be you and what can someone else do. But that’s a great point to think about that in your private life as well. So we talked about the AI requirement coming up, but in terms of any other recent changes or trends in UK law, is there anything else that small businesses and especially retailers and e commerce brands need to be aware of?

Lucy Wheeler [00:21:06]:
Can we talk about gpsr? Oh, we never know anyone to mention that again.

Catherine Edley [00:21:12]:
Let’s do it.

Lucy Wheeler [00:21:12]:
Okay, so the general Product Safety regulations came out. Well, they came into force in December last year and I think really disappointingly they took so many people by surprise, didn’t they? It was really hard and I think it still is hard for a lot of people. So if you don’t know what they are, essentially if you sell to Northern Ireland or the eu, sell products to consumers, you now have to have a safety technical file that goes with your products and you have to have an EU representative to represent you if you’re selling into the eu, which again comes with more paperwork and more expense. And I think from my point of view, it was just so heartbreaking to see everybody stop selling. We set up an entirely new company based in Ireland to support people and did the same sort of thing. So we have a legal template shop in the uk. We’ve now got a base in Ireland as well. So we support people to comply with their GPSR requirements and get up to feed and provide that representation so people can continue to trade because otherwise lots of people have just cut off a massive part of their sales stream.

Lucy Wheeler [00:22:22]:
Especially because then the US obviously with tariffs and everything, that was a disaster. So it’s kind of people really got caught and they.

Catherine Edley [00:22:30]:
Yes, and I think as well what’s made GPSL so difficult was that even when you went on the government website, a lot of the time it would just say more information be forthcoming. And it’s kind of like with the tariffs as well, everyone’s just stuck in this like, well, what is actually happening? You know, it’s so difficult when the kind of official channels don’t really give that much guidance because guess maybe they don’t know or they’re just not geared up to give information in a way that small businesses really understand.

Lucy Wheeler [00:22:56]:
I was really surprised as the lack of support that was available And I said, we ended up doing a whole new business. And the fact that we had to do that just shows you how much of a need there was for support. We ended up ranking number one on Google, which I was like so pressed just because we were the only ones writing about it. We were explaining to people what we need to do. And it isn’t as confusing as people think. And essentially you probably have done a lot of it already. And it’s essentially for every product that you have, you have to have technical files, so documentation that goes with that product to say that it’s safe. So you essentially explain how it is safe and in what ways.

Lucy Wheeler [00:23:27]:
And you put together all of the technical information about it, including any test reports, and then safety information, how you’re complying with any safety testing, which you would have done already. Like, that’s it’s again, it’s an administrative task to put everything together. And then that’s the technical file. And you give that to your authorized representative. And it’s almost as simple as that. It’s not quite as simple as that, but it’s that type of how it works. And I think that a lot of people think, well, it’s just way too expensive, I can’t do it. But yeah, I think I’ll just keep digging and look for other solutions if you think it’s too expensive.

Lucy Wheeler [00:23:59]:
Because it’s not necessarily. Now it was like with gdpr.

Catherine Edley [00:24:03]:
I mean, yes, there’s lots of ins and outs of it, but at the end of the day, most people were fairly compliant with it, you know, and there were people who years later would say, I used to have an email list, but I deleted it because I was scared of gdpr. And it’s a real shame when that happens.

Lucy Wheeler [00:24:17]:
Yeah, definitely. And I think we’re like years and years on now for gdpr, but. And it keeps coming up, you do have to have the basic understanding. And I think this is what’s really hard about legal. And I think obviously follow me online if you’d like to learn from me. But also there’s a lot of other, like, legal educators out there. So find someone that you like, someone that operates in your jurisdiction or where you’re selling to, because that matters as well. So there’s different rules in different parts of the world.

Lucy Wheeler [00:24:41]:
Find someone that you can trust and who knows what they’re doing and to sort of just listen and try and take in and absorb what’s going on. Because I think that’s the biggest issue with legal is you can get very easily left behind. And it feels like, oh my gosh, there’s so much to do, but a lot of it you will be doing already. And it’s not as scary as it. As it seems. It’s not as boring as it seems. Like the gdpr, it’s data protection as well, but it’s. You kind of just need to put yourself in the shoes of being the consumer.

Lucy Wheeler [00:25:07]:
So what are you going to want to know if you were buying a product product, you want to know that your bank information and your home information is safe and it’s just those kind of things. It’s not as scary or different as it’s just almost just jumping through the hoops often.

Catherine Edley [00:25:20]:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much and I’d love to wrap up with a final question. If you’re an independent retailer or E commerce brand and I gave you £1,000 to spend on your small product business, what would you spend it on to make it more resilient? I can probably guess what the answer is going to be.

Lucy Wheeler [00:25:40]:
I’m going to split it and say the first thing I would do is spend £170 on a trademark for sure. And I think I’d spend the amount that I needed to on my trademark to make sure it was a good trademark. But I’d actually use Facebook ads, I’d use investor ads. We’ve been doing that. I’ve seen other people doing it as well and just getting a really great return. But getting the right customer base because I think that makes it so much more resilient. Instead of feeling like you have to show up on socials all the time, there’s so much noise, social media and it can feel really draining. I think if you can create content, like test it out organically first, find out what works and then amplify that with ads.

Lucy Wheeler [00:26:15]:
We started doing that about 18 months ago and it’s been absolutely incredible. Like an absolute game changer to this business. And I see, obviously I see an inside a lot of people’s businesses, so I know what they do as well. And those that use ads, not huge ad spend either. Just even like a few pounds a day makes such a difference and I say makes it more resilient because it means that you’re not depending on social media, but it also means you’re bringing in a wider type of client and you can diversify a little bit more easily.

Catherine Edley [00:26:42]:
Amazing. Well, thank you so much. And do you want to finish off by telling people where they can find out more about you and what you offer?

Lucy Wheeler [00:26:49]:
I have a legal template shop called Lucy Legal and you can find that on lucylegal.co.uk we also have a membership where we support all small business owners in the UK. And if you head to lucilegal.co.uk checklist then you can grab a checklist from us which includes the most important things that you need to be thinking about when you’re trying to legally protect your business.

Catherine Edley [00:27:11]:
Thank you so much for listening. Why not take a moment to follow, subscribe or like the podcast, depending on what platform you’re on, and that way you’ll be the first to know about every new episode that comes out each week on a Thursday morning. See you next week.

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