Selling from your own shop: Shopify, WooCommerce and the rest
The rules are the same as on a marketplace. What is different is that nobody will send you a help page about them.
Updated 11 October 2026 · 6 min read
Nobody is going to tell you
Sellers on Etsy and eBay found out because their platform published a page and, in some cases, emailed them. A shop on its own domain has no such channel: the obligation applies identically, and the notification does not exist.
« Since 8 July 2026, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has imposed the prior electronic filing of certificates of compliance for imported consumer products subject to a safety standard. »The rule is written about importers of consumer products, not about platforms, which is why the shopfront makes no difference to it. What the platform changes is only who reminds you and where you read about it.
« Beginning July 8, 2026, importers of most regulated consumer products will be required to electronically file (eFile) certificates of compliance »Who files, when the shop is yours
The filing is done at entry by whoever handles the import - your carrier for a postal or express parcel, a broker for anything bigger. That does not change with the shopfront either. What changes is that the data has to come from somewhere, and in your case there is no marketplace field to type it into.
« The importer is responsible for eFiling a certificate whenever one is required. »So it lives in your own systems: the certificate in your records, the identifiers in your product data, the annex prepared per parcel in your postage tool. Shops that ship a lot end up putting the three identifiers into the product record in Shopify or WooCommerce, next to the weight and the customs code, because that is where the person packing the parcel will look.
« the product identifier (Product ID), the certifier identifier (Certifier ID), the version identification (Version ID). »The one advantage you have
You control the listing. On a marketplace, the category tree and the age filters are someone else's, and they take part in how your product would be read. On your own site, the words that describe who a product is for are yours, and they should say the same thing as your certificate.
« Children's product means a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. »This is worth an hour of your time. A shop that sells an adult decorative object and describes it, in one collection, as a gift for little ones has created a contradiction between its own pages and its own declaration - and the declaration is the one that is signed.
Choosing how the parcel leaves
The French postal question hits an independent shop harder than a marketplace seller, because you cannot fall back on a platform's shipping programme. La Poste suspended the affected categories on its consumer offers and kept professional offers open for senders who have done the CPSC formalities.
« Shipments via Colissimo Facilité and Chronopost Pro are possible for professional senders who have already completed the formalities with CPSC. »Which reframes the decision. The question is not which carrier will take the parcel despite the rules, it is which contract you sign once your product data exists - and the data is what makes every route available rather than one.
Where to put all this in your shop
Treat it as product data rather than as paperwork, and it stops being a recurring task. Three places are enough.
- In the product record: the three identifiers, next to the customs code and the weight.
- In your archive: the certificate, the laboratory report, and the supplier's written answers.
- In your packing routine: the annex, one per parcel, description in English, tracking number left blank.
Our questions produce the first two and prepare the third, and they keep the reasoning attached to the document, which is what you will want the day someone asks why a product was declared the way it was.