Selling Through Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok or WhatsApp? What the E-Commerce Law Asks of You and What Your Store Terms Must Say

Step 1: Check whether the Law covers you when you sell from a social media account

Article 1 of the Law defines the service provider as the trader or the practitioner. The trader is the person entered in the commercial register who engages in e-commerce, and the practitioner is the person not entered in the commercial register who engages in it. In other words, having no commercial register does not take you outside the Law; it makes you a practitioner to whom its provisions apply. Article 2 provides that the Law applies to the service provider inside the Kingdom, to the practitioner outside the Kingdom who offers products or services in a way that lets the consumer reach them, and to the consumer.

The Law defines e-commerce as an activity of an economic nature carried out by the service provider and the consumer, wholly or partly, by electronic means in order to sell products, provide services or advertise them. Article 2 of the Implementing Regulation explains when an activity is of an economic nature: when the service provider habitually carries it on for profit. Selling a used personal item once is not what is meant, while regularly posting products and taking orders for profit is what brings you within the Law and the Regulation, whether or not you are entered in the commercial register.

The Law defines the electronic store as an electronic platform that lets the service provider display or sell a product, provide a service or advertise it. The definition does not require you to own the platform or to have your own website, so treat your Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok account, and your WhatsApp Business account, as sales storefronts subject to the disclosure duties below. If you are a registered trader, Article 15 of the Law requires you to enter your electronic store in the commercial register in accordance with the Commercial Register Law, and the details and procedure of that entry should be checked on the official source before you rely on them.

1. Identify your status: a trader entered in the commercial register, or an unregistered practitioner.
2. Ask yourself: do I post products regularly and take orders for profit? If the answer is yes, the Law covers you.
3. List every channel where you display or sell: every account, every WhatsApp number and every link. They all need the same disclosure.

Step 2: What must appear in the bio and the order message

Article 6 of the Law requires the service provider to disclose specific data in its electronic store, and Article 6 of the Implementing Regulation adds further data. When you sell through accounts, the practical place for this data is the bio and the page its link opens, with a short version repeated in the first message you send to confirm an order.

• Your name or any distinguishing mark, and your address, unless you are registered with one of the electronic store authentication bodies licensed by the Ministry (Law Article 6).
• Your means of contact (Law Article 6), ideally a fixed one that does not change when the account changes.
• The name and number of the register you are entered in, if you are entered in a commercial register or another register open to the public (Law Article 6).
• The privacy policy, including the measures that protect the consumer's personal data and the scope of handling user identification files, if any (Regulation Article 6).
• The procedures and means for receiving and handling consumer complaints (Regulation Article 6).
• Your tax number, if any (Regulation Article 6).

A registered trader has an extra duty: Article 14 of the Implementing Regulation of the Commercial Register Law provides that the trader displays the basic data entered in the commercial register through the unified electronic code in a clear place, and that a trader engaged in e-commerce displays it on its website. If the page behind your bio link is your website, place the code there. As for the name of the currently licensed authentication body and its procedure, check them on the Ministry of Commerce website before you write them in your account, and do not rely on unofficial posts.

Step 3: The statement the customer sees before paying

Before the customer transfers any money, Article 7 of the Law requires the service provider to give a statement setting out the terms and conditions of the contract about to be concluded. In a web store this statement appears on the checkout page; when you sell through messages, the safer course is to send it as one clear message before the account number or the payment link, not scattered across voice notes and images.

• The steps to be taken to conclude the contract.
• The data relating to the service provider.
• The essential characteristics of the product or service.
• The total price including all fees, taxes or additional delivery amounts, if any.
• The payment, delivery and performance arrangements.
• The warranty details, if any.

Article 7 of the Implementing Regulation adds to this statement: a reference to the consumer's right to rescind the contract where rescission is allowed, the costs the consumer bears on exercising it and what the consumer must do, or a reference to the fact that the consumer may not rescind because one of the excepted cases applies. It also covers the price details, such as the original price, delivery costs, taxes and any costs that may be charged later with how they are calculated, after-sales services and their conditions if any, the contract term and its expiry date where relevant, and the payment, recurring payment, shipping and delivery terms.

Paragraph 2 of the same article requires the service provider to show the consumer the action that concludes the contract, by stating in the box provided that clicking it concludes the contract and creates the obligation to pay, in a clear and simple way. The text is written for a box that is clicked, and a chat has no box, so our practical suggestion is that the statement message ends with an explicit confirmation phrase the customer replies with, as in the example below.

Step 4: The invoice after every order

Once the contract is concluded, Article 8 of the Law requires the service provider to give the consumer an invoice showing the cost of each product or service, the total price including all fees, taxes or additional delivery amounts if any, and the date and place of delivery. Article 8 of the Implementing Regulation requires the invoice to be capable of being saved and sets out its contents. A screenshot of a chat or a voice note does not serve this purpose; a better choice is an invoice file or link sent in the same chat, with a copy kept on your side.

• The service provider's name if a practitioner, or its trade name if a trader, and a description of the product or service.
• Confirmation that the contract was concluded and its date.
• The total price and the tax amount if any, with the price details, how it is calculated and when it falls due.
• Shipping, transport and delivery charges if any, and the tax number if any.
• The delivery date, and the carrier's name and tracking details if any.
• A summary of the exchange and return terms where these are allowed, the payment method, and a statement that payment is complete if it has been made.

If your business is registered for VAT, further invoicing requirements of the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority may apply to its invoices, and those are outside the scope of this guide.

Step 5: What an ad, story or reel must carry and what it must not claim

Article 10 of the Law treats the electronic ad as one of the contractual documents that complement the contract and bind its parties. In practice, what you say in a reel about the size, the material, the delivery time or the discount becomes part of what you have committed to the customer, so do not write anything in your terms that contradicts it.

• What the ad must include (Law Article 10): the name of the product or service, the service provider's name and any distinguishing mark unless it is registered with an electronic store authentication body, and its means of contact.
• What Regulation Article 10 adds: a clear statement that the content is advertising, the information that lets the consumer decide knowingly and with awareness, a means for the consumer to ask you to stop sending ads with the sending stopped as soon as asked, and compliance with the advertising rules and any licences required by the nature of the product or service.
• What is prohibited (Law Article 11): any false offer, statement or claim, or one worded in a way that could directly or indirectly deceive or mislead the consumer, and any logo or trademark you have no right to use, or a counterfeit mark.

Article 12 of the Law provides that if it is established that the service provider breached paragraph 2 of Article 10 or Article 11, the Ministry may require it to remove the breach or withdraw the ad within one day of being notified, without prejudice to the penalties in the Law. So review your pinned story highlights and the old posts still visible on your account, because they remain live ads for as long as they are published.

Step 6: The withdrawal right and late delivery as fields in your terms

Article 13 of the Law, without prejudice to warranty provisions, gives the consumer the right to rescind the contract within the seven days following receipt of the product or the date of contracting for the service, as long as the consumer has not used the product, benefited from the service or obtained any benefit from either, and the consumer bears the costs of rescission unless the parties agree otherwise. So writing 'no returns, no exchanges' in your bio is not enough, because that phrase collides with a right the Law grants, except in the excepted cases below.

• Products made at the consumer's request or to specifications the consumer set, unless they are defective or do not match the agreed specifications.
• Videotapes, discs, CDs and software that have been used, and purchases of newspapers, magazines, publications and books.
• A defect that appears in the product because of the consumer's poor handling.
• Accommodation, transport or catering services, and purchases of software downloaded online, unless a defect prevents the download or it does not match what was agreed.
• The cases set by Regulation Article 11 unless otherwise agreed, including a product liable to spoil within the rescission period, a product that cannot be resold for health reasons, a product designed and made specially for the consumer to the consumer's specifications, and a product whose price moves with a volatile market, such as gold and silver.

As for delay, Article 14 of the Law provides that unless the service provider and the consumer agree on another delivery or performance period, the consumer may rescind the contract if the service provider is late by more than fifteen days from the date the contract was concluded or from the agreed date, and recover what was paid and any costs caused by the delay, unless the delay is due to force majeure. The service provider must also inform the consumer of any expected delay or difficulty that materially affects delivery. So make the delivery period in your terms a field you fill in for each product or city, not a general phrase such as 'delivery within days'.

Step 7: One set of terms for every channel, and how it fits with the privacy and returns policies

Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Implementing Regulation requires the service provider to give access to the disclosure data, the privacy policy and the complaints route by providing a link to them in its electronic store, and to flag any amendment made to them. The practical way for a seller working on several platforms is to publish one set of documents on one page and point to it from every channel, instead of writing different terms in each account that may contradict one another.

1. Gather the documents on one page: the terms and conditions, the privacy policy, the returns and exchange policy, and the disclosure data.
2. Put the page link in the bio on Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, and in the description of your WhatsApp Business account.
3. Pin a message or a permanent story highlight that points to the link and summarises its key points: the delivery period, the withdrawal right and the complaints route.
4. Send the link in the statement message before payment, and ask for the customer's explicit confirmation as in Step 3.
5. Send a savable invoice after every order that carries a summary of the exchange and return terms.
6. Whenever you amend, add the amendment date at the top of the page and flag it in a story or a pinned message, and keep the previous version so you know what each customer agreed to.

The three documents fit together like this: the terms and conditions are the contract that governs the order from confirmation to delivery, and they refer to the returns and exchange policy for the details of withdrawal and refunds, and to the privacy policy for everything about the customer data you collect in the chat, such as the name, phone number and address. Article 5 of the Law does not allow the consumer's personal data to be kept longer than the nature of the dealing requires unless another period is agreed, makes the service provider responsible for protecting it, and does not allow it to be used for unauthorised purposes or disclosed to another party without the consumer's consent or unless the law requires it. If the three documents contradict each other, or the story says something different from the link, your position weakens at the first dispute.

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