Online and E-Commerce

Anyone selling age restricted goods, content and services online needs to take action to prevent children from being able to access those products.

You may be needing to carry out age verification through your online checkouts or at the point of delivery to the customer or both. Implementing the technical age verification systems is only part of demonstrating compliance for your online services.

How can the Age Check Certification Scheme help online and e-commerce services?

We test that age check systems work. We do this through audits, test purchasing and mystery shopping. We also provide the training that you need for your staff and all of the industry standard signage and materials for a professional approach. We can help with age verification policies and if you have an online store, we can test this against PAS 1296:2018.

Why do I have to get this done?

Local laws place obligations on e-commerce services to take steps to prevent the underage sale of age restricted goods. The penalties for failing to comply can be substantial including the forced closure of your business. 

What information and warning notices do I need to be compliant?

You may be required to display certain warnings in relation to particular products in your catalogue of online. Your delivery staff or parcels may also need to be marked. Our shop has all of the materials and policies that you need to comply with local laws.

What training do I need for our staff?

As a minimum, you should regularly remind your staff of the rules concerning age restricted goods. However, to be fully protected, you should put your staff through a structured training programme, as a part of when they start work with you. This training programme should be using certified materials and recorded.

Can the Age Check Certification Scheme provide our age verification system?

We don't provide age verification services, but we do certify and check that they work. We recommend that you use members of the Age Verification Providers Association and check that they have PAS 1296:2018 certification, which we can provide.

How do I get my age check systems tested?

If you want a test purchase carrying out at your store, you can book this through our shop.

If you’ve got a programme of test purchasing activity that you want to discuss with us, then just get in touch. We can provide discounts for programmes of activity. We would be happy to prepare a bespoke proposal for you or to respond to an invitation to tender.

Our test purchasing and mystery shopping services are available in most of the G20 Group of Nations and the European Union.