Consumer guarantees for online shopping and how your rights work in Australia

The same consumer law applies when you buy online

When you buy something online from an Australian business, you have the same statutory protections as when you buy in a shop. The guarantees that protect you are set out in the Australian Consumer Law (the ACL), which is Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (the CCA). The ACL applies to supplies of goods to consumers, and it does not distinguish between a sale at a counter and a sale through a website, an app or an online marketplace.

The scheme matters more online than in a shop for one simple reason: you cannot inspect the goods before you pay. The consumer guarantees are designed to fill that gap. They impose minimum standards on whoever sells you the goods, and they give you a ladder of remedies when those standards are not met. This article explains how that mechanism operates, where it stops applying, and what you can actually do when an online purchase goes wrong.

Who is who in an online purchase

An online purchase typically involves several distinct players, each with a different role under the ACL:

The consumer: Under s 3 of the ACL, you are a consumer if the goods cost no more than $100,000, or are of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use, or are a vehicle or trailer used mainly to transport goods on public roads. Buying for re-supply, or to use up or transform the goods in production, manufacture or repair, takes you outside the definition.
The supplier: The business that sells you the goods. The guarantees run against the supplier, so identifying who actually sold you the goods is usually the first question in any online dispute.
The marketplace: eBay, Etsy, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace and Amazon are platforms. In most cases they are not the supplier; they provide the venue where you deal with a seller. The exception is where the platform itself sells, such as Amazon selling directly rather than through third-party sellers.
The regulators: The ACCC enforces the ACL nationally, and state and territory fair trading agencies handle consumer complaints in their own jurisdictions.
The courts and tribunals: If a dispute cannot be resolved, consumer claims can be pursued through tribunals such as NCAT, VCAT or QCAT, or through the courts for larger amounts.

The trigger: supply to a consumer in trade or commerce

The consumer guarantees attach only when a supplier supplies goods to a consumer in trade or commerce. "Trade or commerce" is defined in s 4 of the CCA as trade or commerce within Australia or between Australia and places outside Australia, and the courts assess whether the particular supply has a trading or commercial character. For most online purchases, the practical question is whether the seller is running a business.

A one-off sale between two individuals is generally not in trade or commerce. Selling your own second-hand goods on Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace, or clearing out a garage, sits outside the ACL, and the consumer guarantees do not apply to those purchases. The ACCC's guidance is explicit that most guarantees do not apply to one-off sales where the seller is not running a business, and it gives individuals selling through online marketplaces as the example.

The line is not always clean. An individual who sells repeatedly, buys with a view to reselling, or operates at a scale and with a profit motive that looks like a business can be found to be supplying in trade or commerce even without a registered company. The seller's own description of themselves as a "private" seller is not decisive. What matters is the character of the conduct. Equally, the ACL has no general exemption for second-hand goods: when a business sells used goods, the guarantees still apply, and s 54 of the ACL simply adjusts what "acceptable quality" means by reference to the nature and age of the goods and the price paid.

What the guarantees protect

Where the guarantees apply, they are automatic. A term in a contract that tries to exclude, restrict or modify them is void under s 64 of the ACL. Signs saying "no refunds", "all sales final", or "the manufacturer's warranty is your only remedy" do not work, and it is against the law for a business to mislead you about your rights in those ways.

The guarantees that matter for goods are set out in Division 1 of Part 3-2 of the ACL:

Title, undisturbed possession and no hidden encumbrances (ss 51-53): the seller must have the right to sell the goods, no one should be able to reclaim or repossess them, and no one should be able to pursue the goods for money the previous owner owes. These are the guarantees that protect you when goods turn out to be stolen or subject to money owing.
Acceptable quality (s 54): goods must be fit for the purposes for which goods of that kind are commonly supplied, acceptable in appearance and finish, free from defects, safe and durable, as a reasonable consumer fully acquainted with their state and condition would regard as acceptable. The nature of the goods, the price, and anything the seller said about them all feed into that assessment.
Fitness for a disclosed purpose (s 55): if you tell the seller what you need the goods for and reasonably rely on their skill and judgment, the goods must be fit for that purpose.
Correspondence with description (s 56): what the seller described in the listing, in writing or in photographs is what you must receive. If the listing says a mixer comes with two beaters and one arrives, that is a failure of this guarantee.
Match with sample or demonstration model (s 57), repairs and spare parts (s 58) and express warranties (s 59): a seller must honour promises made about the quality, condition or performance of the goods, and manufacturers and importers must make spare parts and repair facilities available for a reasonable time.

One carve-out matters for online shopping. The guarantees of acceptable quality and correspondence with description do not apply to goods supplied by way of sale by auction (ss 54(1)(b) and 56(1)(b)). The ACCC describes that exclusion in terms of a traditional auction conducted by an agent of the person selling the goods. The title, possession and encumbrance guarantees still apply at auction, but the quality guarantees do not, which is worth remembering before you bid on an online auction rather than choosing a fixed-price purchase.

The remedy ladder when a guarantee fails

When a guarantee fails, the ACL gives you escalating remedies against the supplier under s 259:

If the failure can be remedied and is not a major failure, you may require the supplier to remedy it within a reasonable time. The supplier can choose how: repairing the goods, replacing them with identical goods, or refunding what you paid (s 261).
If the supplier refuses or fails to do so within a reasonable time, you can have the failure remedied elsewhere and recover the reasonable costs, or reject the goods and seek a refund (s 259(2)).
If the failure is major, or cannot be remedied at all, you can reject the goods and get a refund, or keep the goods and recover compensation for the reduction in their value (s 259(3)).
You can also recover damages for loss that was reasonably foreseeable, such as the cost of ingredients wasted because the machine you bought online failed on first use (s 259(4)).

A failure is "major" under s 260 when a reasonable consumer would not have bought the goods knowing their true state, or the goods depart significantly from the description, or they are substantially unfit for their common purpose and cannot easily be fixed within a reasonable time. Rejection is effected by notifying the supplier, so keep your notification in writing and keep proof you sent it.

The guarantees respond to defects and misdescription, not second thoughts. There is no statutory right to a refund because you changed your mind. A business that offers change-of-mind refunds does so as a matter of policy, not obligation, which is why returns policies differ so much between online retailers.

Private sellers, marketplaces and auctions: where the edges bite

Most confusion in online shopping comes down to one question: who are you actually buying from?

Private sellers

If you buy from an individual who is not running a business, the quality, fitness and description guarantees do not apply. You are buying the goods as they stand. The exceptions are the guarantees of title, undisturbed possession and no hidden debts or charges, which the ACCC confirms still apply to private sales. So a private seller must still have the right to sell you the goods, but they do not have to stand behind the goods' quality. Buying "as is" from a private seller is a genuine risk transfer, and the price should reflect it.

Marketplace buyer protection

eBay's Money Back Guarantee, PayPal's Buyer Protection and Etsy's case system are contractual schemes run by the platforms. They are separate from the ACL and governed by the platform's terms, which typically make coverage conditional and time-limited. They can be faster and more practical than a legal claim, and they are often the only avenue against a private seller who will not cooperate. Using them does not extinguish your statutory rights against a supplier who is a business, and the platform's decision is not the final word on your legal entitlements.

Businesses selling through marketplaces

If you sell through a marketplace under a username, you are the supplier, and the guarantees run against you even though the buyer never sees your face or your shopfront. A marketplace seller who is in trade or commerce cannot avoid the ACL by presenting as an individual, and a returns policy that tries to contract out of the guarantees is void.

What to do when an online purchase goes wrong

The practical sequence, in order:

Document everything: screenshots of the listing, order confirmations, photos of the goods as received, and copies of your correspondence with the seller.
Contact the seller first. For a failure that can be remedied, you must give the supplier the chance to fix it within a reasonable time before you can reject the goods and demand a refund.
Escalate to the platform's resolution process if the seller does not respond, and check whether a marketplace buyer-protection scheme covers the transaction.
For card payments, ask your bank about its chargeback process. Chargebacks are governed by your bank's and the card scheme's rules, and they operate separately from the ACL, but they can recover the money where the seller has vanished.
Complain to the ACCC or your state or territory fair trading body. They cannot usually recover your money for you, but they investigate businesses that systematically refuse to honour guarantees, and a regulator complaint can prompt a recalcitrant seller to act.
For amounts that justify it, consider a claim in your local consumer tribunal or the relevant court. The tribunals are designed for people without lawyers, with lower costs and faster hearings than court.

When a lawyer is worth the call

The threshold question in most online disputes is whether the seller was supplying in trade or commerce, and that is often genuinely hard to answer. A lawyer can pull together the evidence of the seller's business character, such as the volume of their listings, their history, and whether they buy to resell, and advise on whether the ACL applies at all before you spend time and money on remedies.

A lawyer also earns their fee where the amounts are significant, where a major-failure argument turns on technical evidence, or where consequential damages are in play. And if you are the business selling online, the mirror image applies: a lawyer can review your online terms, returns policy and refund messaging for terms that are void under s 64, and can help you respond properly to consumer guarantee claims so that a single dispute does not become an ACCC or fair trading investigation.

The seller-status question decides most online disputes

Everything in this article turns on one fact: whether the person you paid was supplying in trade or commerce. If they were, you carry the full set of guarantees, the remedies ladder, and the right to reject faulty goods. If they were not, you carry the risk, apart from title and possession, and your realistic protections are the platform's buyer-protection terms and goodwill. Before you click buy on a marketplace listing, spend thirty seconds on the seller's profile: their volume, history and presentation will usually tell you which side of the line they fall on. For a business selling online, the risk concentrates in the opposite direction, because presenting a business as a private seller, or posting a "no refunds" policy, is the fastest way to convert a customer complaint into a regulator's file. Know which side of the line you are on before the dispute starts, and the rest of the scheme works for you.