“Communicate to the consumer” – information panels

In what concerns consumption, in particular regarding the consumer law and respective obligations of the commercial shopping facilities or service providers, the Government Program has been giving an increasing importance to the simplification and harmonization of the rules on information to be provided to the consumer. These rules are visible, and become mandatory, through their advertising and display in the shopping facilities that sell goods or provide services.

In this sense, "the Government has surveyed and analysed the obligations of information that should be given to the consumer, which must be posted in the commercial facilities that sell goods and/or provide services, in accordance with the current legislation, in order to analyse the possibilities of simplification and harmonization of those rules” (Decree-Law no. 102/2017, of 23rd August).

On the side of the economic agents, and taking into consideration the need of reciprocity to the consumer’s rights, it is important to point out that the installation of a commercial facility that sell goods and/or provide services should respect a set of rules, not even at the infrastructures level, but also at related to the provision of information which enable the consumer to feel himself informed as well as respected. 

Having this goal in mind, the Decree-Law also includes, among other clauses, the creation of an electronic platform that offers the economic agents the possibility to proceed to the automatic and free display of the panels and models which become compulsory by the law and that are necessary for the exercise of any economic activity. In this platform, people can also access the optional panels/signs and customize them according to the branch of economic activity, achieving thus the objective and the obligation to inform the consumer.

Therefore, the platform "Communicate to the consumer”, available at the website of the Directorate-General for the Economic Activities (in Portuguese, DGAE), has a set of useful tools aimed to guide the economic agents, in order to obtain information of higher quality and accuracy, making the business more organised, as well as giving also the right information on the requirements demanded by the respective supervisory entities. In this way, the goal of having all the information concentrated in a single accessible space is accomplished.

Although, it should be noted that this support provided by the DGAE platform does not exempt the need to respect the legislation in force.

 

The platform "Communicate to the consumer” presents the compulsory and the optional panels to be used by anyone who wants to carry out an economic activity in a shopping facility that sell goods and/or provide services.

Note: The images used in this news was kindly authorized by the DGAE.