UK consumer law changed more in 2025 than in the decade before it. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act gave the Competition and Markets Authority direct enforcement powers and banned practices that many stores still have switched on. This is the list a UK Shopify store needs in place, and how each item is handled in Shopify.
Pre-contract information and the 14-day cancellation right
Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations, online customers get clear information before they buy — who you are, the total price, delivery costs and timing, and how to cancel — and a 14-day right to cancel most purchases after delivery. Publish your business name and geographic address, a returns and cancellation policy, and a model cancellation form, and link them from the footer and checkout.
Drip pricing is banned
Since 6 April 2025 the headline price has to include every mandatory charge the customer cannot avoid. Fees that appear only at checkout — a compulsory handling charge, a mandatory service fee — are now an unfair practice in their own right. Delivery charges can still be shown separately if they genuinely depend on the delivery option chosen, but they should be stated clearly before checkout.
- Show prices including VAT and any mandatory fee on product and collection pages.
- State delivery costs and options on the product page or a clearly linked delivery page.
- Remove compulsory add-ons that appear only in the cart.
Fake reviews are banned — including hiding the bad ones
The DMCC Act bans fake reviews and the commissioning of them, and it bans presenting reviews in a misleading way — for example publishing only positive reviews while suppressing negative ones. If you show reviews, use an app that collects them from verified orders, publish them without selective filtering, and say how they are collected.
The CMA can fine directly
Before 2025 the CMA had to go through the courts to enforce consumer law. It can now investigate and fine directly, with penalties of up to 10% of global turnover. Practices that were tolerated as industry habit — countdown timers that reset, pre-ticked add-ons, hidden fees — are exactly what that regime targets.
Cookies and consent
Under UK GDPR and the PECR rules, non-essential cookies — analytics and advertising — need consent, and rejecting must be as easy as accepting. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 relaxes consent for some low-risk cookies, but those changes are being brought in stages; until they clearly apply to your setup, treat analytics as consent-based. In Shopify, connect your banner to the Customer Privacy API and Google Consent Mode v2 so the decision actually controls tracking.
VAT
You must register for VAT once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any rolling 12-month period. Prices shown to consumers include VAT. In Shopify, set UK tax collection under Taxes and duties and keep prices tax-inclusive for the UK market. Selling into the EU from the UK brings its own rules — see our guides on IOSS and Shopify Markets.
Subscriptions
The DMCC Act also introduces a new regime for subscription contracts — clear pre-contract information, reminders before renewal and an easy way to exit. These provisions come later than the April 2025 changes; check the current commencement date if you sell subscriptions, and build reminder and cancellation flows into your subscription app now rather than retrofitting them.
A practical checklist
- Business name, geographic address and contact details published and linked from every page.
- Terms, privacy notice, returns and cancellation policy, and a model cancellation form.
- Headline prices include VAT and every mandatory fee; delivery costs stated before checkout.
- Reviews collected from verified orders and published without selective filtering.
- No fake urgency: timers and stock messages reflect reality.
- Cookie banner with an equal reject option, wired to Consent Mode v2 and the Customer Privacy API.
- VAT registration monitored against the £90,000 threshold.