Business advice
The Sale of Goods Act and SOGA hub
The Sale of Goods Act 1979 gives your customers certain legal rights when they buy goods from you.
Visit the OFT's Sale of Goods Act (SOGA) hub:
The Sale of Goods Act (SOGA) hub provides comprehensive and up to date guidance on the sale of Goods Act for retailers and business support organisations.
Including training presentations, an easy reference flowchart, information documents and posters, all materials provided are available online or to download in a variety of formats.
You can print and save, add your own branding, copy and paste into your existing documents or link to them via your website or intranet. We also provide a range of promotional materials to help you disseminate the information to your members or staff.
The Sale of Goods Act - an overview:
Under the Sale of Goods Act, when you sell something to a customer you have an agreement or contract with them. A customer has legal rights if the goods they purchased do not ‘conform to contract’ (are faulty).
The Act says that to conform to contract goods should:
-
match their description - by law everything that is said about the product must not be misleading – whether this is said by a sales assistant, or written on the packaging, in-store, on advertising materials or in a catalogue
- be of satisfactory quality. Quality of goods includes:
- appearance and finish
- freedom from minor defects (such as marks or holes)
- safe to use
- in good working order
- durability
- be fit for purpose. If a customer says – or when it should be obvious to you – that an item is wanted for a particular purpose, even if it is a purpose the item is not usually supplied for, and you agree the item is suitable, or do not say it is not fit for that purpose, then it has to be reasonably fit.
The Sale of Goods Act 1979 can be viewed in full on the OPSI website.
For advice regarding selling to consumers online or at a distance by another method such as digital TV, mail order, phone or fax, visit our Distance Selling hub.
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