Legal boot camp for your online business

Doing business online can be difficult. Whether you’re running an online store, marketplace, or service – there’s lots to think about, but you’ve only got so much time and money available. So, you often end up setting legal issues aside to be dealt with later (or not at all). They seem so complicated. But, ignoring legal issues like electronic transactions, consumer rights, and privacy can get you into trouble. Also, dealing with legal issues like customer and supplier relationships, structuring your business, and intellectual property can give you the edge over your competitors. Plus, legal issues can be quite simple – once you’ve got the right information. We can give you appropriate legal advice for your online business to help you stay out of trouble and get ahead of your competitors. We offer a legal boot camp in the form of a workshop focusing on this. Find out what you didn’t know you needed to know about doing business online – and make it easy!

Here’s are the hi-lights from a condensed version of the workshop that we did for Shopstar, a South African online platform where you can create your own online store:

What are the issues?

• You could supply faulty goods or provide unsatisfactory services and your customers could try and hold you liable for the harm they cause
• Your customers could try and return goods or cancel services, and demand replacements or their money back
• You could market to people without their consent and face liability for unsolicited electronic communications
• You could breach your customers’ privacy and suffer reputational damage, lose customer loyalty, be liable for damages, or be fined or jailed
• Your relationships with your customers or suppliers could break down and you could get into disputes or lose business
• You could structure your business badly and fail to protect your assets or struggle to sell your business
• You could fall out with your business partners and lose control of your business
• You could mismanage your intellectual property and not benefit from it

How do you benefit?

• Learn how to protect yourself against liability for faulty goods or unsatisfactory services
• Learn how to manage customers’ rights to return goods or cancel services and increase customer loyalty as a result
• Learn how to market to people lawfully and enhance your reputation by doing so
• Learn how to comply with your privacy obligations and avoid liability for non-compliance
• Learn how to create strong customer and supplier relationships and how to deal with problems when they arise
• Learn how to structure your business well to protect your assets and make it easy to sell
• Learn how to regulate your relationships with your business partners and protect yourself if there is a disagreement
• Learn how to protect your intellectual property by understanding copyright, domain names, and trademarks

How does it work?

The session is very interactive and we work with you to help you complete our Legal Checklist for your Online Business, which you get for free as part of the workshop.

Who should attend?

• Online store owners (e-tailers) – anyone who sells goods to customers over the Internet
• Online marketplace operators – anyone who brokers goods transactions between buyers and sellers or service transactions between customers and service providers over the Internet
• Online service providers – anyone who provides a service to customers over the Internet
• Established online businesses – anyone who has been trading online for some time and has realised that they should learn more about the law that affects their business
• Startup online businesses – anyone who is planning on trading online and wants to come up with a plan to do it effectively in terms of the law

Public workshops

We run online workshops from time to time. Please email us if you would like to attend one.

Who is the presenter?

David Luyt is law-of-technology attorney. He understands online business and is an expert on the law that relates to it. He is a legal adviser for various:

• Online stores selling physical goods – like electronics, jewellery, and memorabilia
• Online stores selling digital goods – like ebooks, music files, and downloadable software
• Online marketplaces for goods – like handmade products and second-hand items
• Online marketplaces for services – like transport and micro-tasking
• Online services operating over the Internet – like hosting solutions and electronic signature platforms

How long is it?

The workshop has a running time of approximately four hours (about half a day).