Customer complaints in an online shop in Spain: what you must disclose and how to respond

Most customer complaints are resolved with an email and a refund. But every now and then one arrives bearing the name of a consumer affairs office, an official complaint form or a mention of arbitration. At that point, what matters is having got the basics right: having explained how to complain, responding in time and keeping a record.

This article sets out what can safely be said for an online shop in Spain. The regulation of complaints has a national part and a regional part, set by each autonomous community (Spain's regions): if your case raises doubts, consult your region's consumer affairs office or a professional.

What you have to provide to the customer

Spanish consumer law requires that consumers can send you their complaints and claims easily. In practice, your shop must clearly and accessibly show:

• Your identity: company name, tax ID (NIF), full address. It goes in the legal notice and must be an address where complaints can be made.
• Contact details: a postal address, a telephone number and an email address where complaints are handled. A form alone is not enough as the only channel.
• How to file a complaint and what is needed (order number, description).
• Whether you have signed up to an alternative dispute resolution system or a code of conduct, which one and how to access it.

The consolidated text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users (Spain's main consumer protection law) states that businesses must respond to complaints as quickly as possible and, at most, within one month of their submission. Responding quickly also stops the complaint from escalating.

Official complaint forms and online shops

Official complaint forms (hojas de reclamaciones) are regulated by each autonomous community, and the rules on when and how they must be available for distance selling are not identical everywhere. What is common to all:

• Consumers can file a complaint with the consumer authorities even if you have not given them a form.
• If you receive a complaint form or a request from a consumer affairs office, you have a deadline to reply set by that regional rule. Do not ignore it.
• Some communities regulate electronic versions or the obligation to announce that the forms exist.

Alternative dispute resolution

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) covers ways of resolving a conflict with a consumer without going to court: mediation, conciliation or arbitration before an accredited body. In Spain it is regulated by Ley 7/2017 (Spanish Law 7/2017), which transposed the European directive on this subject. The best known for retail are the consumer arbitration boards (juntas arbitrales de consumo).

What you should know:

• Signing up is, as a general rule, voluntary, except in sectors where a regulation requires it.
• If you have signed up, you must say so on your website and in your general terms, naming the body.
• If you have not and a customer proposes a resolution route before an accredited body, it is advisable to reply in writing stating whether or not you accept.
• A consumer arbitration membership badge can build buyer trust, especially if you are a small shop the buyer does not yet know.

The European online dispute resolution platform

For years, online shops in the European Union had to include a link to the European online dispute resolution platform on their website. That obligation came from a European regulation that was repealed, and the platform stopped operating in 2025. If your legal texts or your shop's footer still mention it, it is time to review them: keeping a link to a service that no longer exists confuses customers and makes your texts look unmaintained.

Bear in mind that this does not remove the obligation to provide information about your own complaint channels or, if you have signed up to one, about the alternative dispute resolution body.

How to handle a formal complaint

1. Acknowledge receipt immediately, even if you do not have the answer yet. Let the customer know someone is looking into it.
2. Gather the facts: order, communications, shipment tracking, photos, what your carrier says.
3. Identify which right is being invoked: withdrawal, legal guarantee, an error in the order, a delay. Each has its own rules.
4. Reply in writing, with a specific proposal or with your reasons if you do not accept it.
5. Keep everything: the complaint, the reply and the date of each. If the case reaches the consumer authorities or arbitration, it is what you will have to defend yourself.
6. Learn from the case: if the complaint keeps coming up, the problem is not the customer, it is one of the shop's processes.

Texts that tend to go out of date

Complaints are one of the sections of legal texts that go longest without review. Warning signs:

• A link to the European online dispute resolution platform.
• A telephone number or address that is no longer the company's.
• A mention of an arbitration board you no longer belong to, or no mention if you do.
• Guarantee periods from before the 2021 reform.
• Texts referring to a carrier or payment method you no longer use.

Legal texts, like the rest of the shop, need maintenance. Every time you change something important in how you operate, one of them stops being true.

How to solve it in PrestaShop

RKR Legal Assistant prepares drafts of the legal notice, privacy policy, terms of sale, shipping and withdrawal texts with your shop's real data, leaves a visible placeholder where a detail is missing instead of making it up, records which version each customer accepted and alerts you when your carriers, payment methods, modules that process data or company identity change. It is a technical tool, not a law firm: you review the texts. The Pack Tienda legal en España bundles RKR Legal Assistant with the Right of Withdrawal (Derecho de Desistimiento), Omnibus Directive compliance and RKR Datos de Facturación modules, plus a three-hour onboarding session with the Rekire team.