The parcel leaves the other side of the world and arrives five weeks after the order. The complaint takes a few days, and it is not filed with the shop: it is written in a comment under the video of the creator, who sold nothing and answers anyway.
That is the typical scene of a UGC campaign ordered by a dropshipping store. It is settled before the shoot, with a text that is not the one everybody thinks of: the code de la consommation (the French consumer code) and its distance selling rules decide almost everything, the 2023 law on commercial influence being only the layer laid over whoever publishes.
Dropshipping is not prohibited, and that is what makes it dangerous
Selling without holding stock is a logistics arrangement, not an offence. The code de la consommation takes no interest in the warehouse, it looks at who concluded the contract with the consumer. Its article L221-15 makes the distance seller liable as of right for the proper performance of the contract, whether the goods sleep on its own shelves or leave a workshop it has never visited.
A delay, a parcel that never arrives, a product different from the photo, a missing instruction leaflet, a refund that drags: the customer turns against the shop, which answers for it although it never touched the product, then sorts things out with its supplier. No clause shifts that liability: a services contract can provide that the creator assumes their own statements, it can neither make them the seller, nor discharge the shop.
The risk of a campaign is therefore not legal in the first place, it is arithmetic. A video that converts well suddenly multiplies the orders a slow supply chain will not hold, and every order not met becomes a dated and public complaint. The reflexes of UGC for online stores hold here, with a far narrower margin for error.
Who is the seller in a UGC campaign
Four situations come back, and a single question separates them: who collects the price and concludes the contract of sale.
The shop that orders the video is the seller, with no discussion possible. The creator running their own store supplied by a distant provider is one just as much: filming their own products changes nothing about their status.
The third case is the most frequent, and it is the one settled case by case: the creator paid by affiliate link or promo code. If they steer towards a third-party shop that sets the price, collects, invoices and delivers, they are not the seller, they are paid to promote, which triggers the obligations of the 2023 law and those alone. If they pick the references, set the prices and collect on their own page while letting a third party ship, they are the seller, whatever affiliation label is stuck on the operation.
The fourth case is the most common in UGC: the creator delivers a video file and sells nothing. They are a service provider, the video becomes advertising by the brand, and it is the brand that answers for what is asserted in it.
The shop in one country, the supplier in another
A company registered in Ireland, a warehouse in Asia and a French audience: the question of applicable law is not settled in the terms and conditions. As soon as the activity is directed at French consumers, they keep the protection of their national law, and the contract cannot take it away from them.
That geography has a direct consequence for the content, because customs duties and an import tax can be added to the displayed price. A price presented as final in the video, when the buyer will pay a supplement on delivery, is a false price.
What the 2023 law puts on whoever promotes
The French law framing commercial influence names dropshipping explicitly, which few bodies of law do: elsewhere, this sales model falls under distance selling law alone. It puts checks on the person who promotes a sale concluded that way: making sure of the real availability of the product, of its lawfulness, of the absence of counterfeiting, and of the identity of the supplier.
It also requires the pre-contractual information provided for distance selling by article L221-5 of the code de la consommation to be given to the consumer: the identity of the seller, contact details allowing them to be reached, the total price, the date or time limit for delivery, the arrangements for exercising the right of withdrawal.
Two people therefore have the same list to check, for two different reasons: the shop because it sells, the creator because they promote. Ignorance of the provenance stops being a defence the moment a consideration is paid.
The brand outside the European Union
When the shop is established outside the European Union, the French creator often becomes the only contact reachable in the country, for unhappy customers as much as for the administration.
Three pieces of information are asked for before signing, not after the first wave of comments: the exact corporate name and address of the selling company, its registration number, and an after-sales contact that answers in French. A brand unable to supply those three lines will be no more able to display them on its shop, which is already a breach independent of any video.
The four assertions that fall
Four sentences come back in almost every script in this sector, and they are the four that expose you fastest to the qualification of misleading commercial practice under article L121-2 of the code de la consommation.
The struck-through price, the stock announced as limited, delivery promised in forty-eight hours and « fabriqué en France » (made in France) have one thing in common: the creator who reads them out loud takes them on as their own. The last is the most treacherous, because it falls under a separate origin regime and is proved otherwise than with a flag printed on the packaging.
| Claim in the video | What it requires to be lawful | What makes it misleading |
|---|---|---|
| Struck-through price, "instead of" | A reference price genuinely charged before the operation | A recommended price never applied |
| Limited stock, last pieces | A real quantity, verifiable at the time of the shoot | A scarcity reset for every visitor |
| Delivery in forty-eight hours | A time limit genuinely met, which in practice presupposes stock already present in the European Union | A shipment from a distant warehouse |
| Made in France | A substantial transformation carried out in France | An imported product simply repackaged |
The countdown
The timer displayed under the buy button is the textbook case of the sector, because it is generally a setting and not a fact. If it resets on every visit or starts again identical the next day, the scarcity announced does not exist, and the video commenting on it distributes false information about the product's availability.
The test costs two minutes: open the page in private browsing, note the counter, come back the next day. The setting belongs to the shop, but the sentence belongs to the creator, since it is them you hear asserting it. In social commerce, where the sale plays out live, it goes out with no safety net: a counter commented out loud cannot be caught back in the edit.
What the creator checks before filming, even when they sell nothing
A provider who delivers a file is not the seller, but their face stays on the video for months and their community does not make the distinction. Four checks eliminate the majority of problem cases.
Is the product received the one sold on the page, in the same colour, the same size and the same composition? Does it carry the conformity marking expected for its category, with an instruction leaflet in French where one is mandatory? How many days actually went by between the order and the delivery? And has the product page been copied from a marketplace, photos included, which raises both a rights question and a truthfulness question?
The objection is obvious, that asking these questions might cost you the campaign; keep in mind that a serious shop answers them within the hour. The refusal is itself the answer, and it comes early.
The test parcel
The test order is the only check that is not delegated, and it is organised like this:
- Order the product as a customer would, paying the public price, from an ordinary address.
- Note the order date, the announced shipping date and the real arrival date.
- Open the parcel on camera, to hold proof of the state and the contents.
- Compare the sales page and the object received point by point, then send the gap to the brand in writing.
The campaign schedule is set around that order, never the other way round. A shoot scheduled before the parcel arrives forces someone to film a product they have not seen.
What the brief and the contract write down
Four clauses settle almost all the disputes in this sector, and none of them takes long to draft. They sit in the same document as the price and the usage rights, alongside the usual clauses of a contract and licence of rights.
The legal guarantee of conformity, provided by article L217-3 of the code de la consommation, applies for two years from delivery of the goods: the brief states that no sentence in the video may restrict it or present it as a commercial gesture by the brand.
The handling of comments is then split out in black and white: who answers questions about delays and returns, within what time, and with which standard replies. Letting the creator improvise about the after-sales service of a shop they do not know is the most frequent source of false statements.
The contract also says where the customer sends a return request and who bears the cost. Finally, a withdrawal clause lets the creator ask for the video to be taken down if the shop changes supplier, modifies the product or lengthens its lead times: the video describes a product on a date, not a perpetual promise.
What the DGCCRF looks at first
The administration has published a practical sheet dedicated to dropshipping, and the order of its checks is instructive because it does not begin with the content of the videos.
It looks first at the identity of the seller: complete legal notices, registration in the trade register, real contact details. It then compares announced lead times with lead times met, checks price reduction announcements and their reference price, then examines the handling of withdrawals and the speed of refunds.
The customer's right of withdrawal runs, moreover, from delivery and not from the order, something shops whose parcels take several weeks rarely anticipate: the return window opens very late, well after the campaign has been paid for and archived.
The videos come last, as exhibits. The refusal rules known to marketplace sellers filter nothing here, since distribution happens on the creator's accounts and not on a listing the platform controls.
Sources
- Loi n° 2023-451 du 9 juin 2023 visant à encadrer l'influence commerciale (Légifrance)
- DGCCRF, « Dropshipping : comment respecter la réglementation ? »
- DGCCRF, « Influenceurs : quels sont mes devoirs ? »
- Code de la consommation, article L221-5, information précontractuelle en vente à distance (Légifrance)
- Code de la consommation, article L121-2, pratiques commerciales trompeuses (Légifrance)
- Service Public Entreprendre, « Faire du commerce en ligne (e-commerce) : règles à respecter »
Checked on 19 September 2026. This guide is not legal advice. Where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source prevails.
