EmpCo directive: software updates and spare parts on your product page

The EmpCo directive asks your online shop's product page for three new pieces of information: software updates, repairability and spare parts, whenever the manufacturer provides them. It has applied in Germany, Austria and Italy since 27 September 2026; in the other EU countries it arrives with each national law.

For your customer it is a help in deciding. Between two almost identical robot vacuums, they will pick the one that says how long it will get updates and how to order a replacement battery.

What will my product page have to show under the EmpCo directive?

Three things, and each one answers a question your customer asks before buying:

• Software updates: for products with software (a smartwatch, a TV, a robot vacuum) and for digital content and services, the minimum period during which the manufacturer provides updates. As a length of time or as a date.
• Repairability score: it only counts if it is calculated under the same rules across the EU. Today that exists for smartphones and tablets: the A to E class on the energy label (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1669). The French repairability index does not count.
• Spare parts and repair: where there is no such score, whether spare parts are available, roughly what they cost and how to order them, whether repair and maintenance instructions exist and what limits there are on repair.

It is the same Directive (EU) 2024/825 that brought in the harmonised guarantee notice. These three pieces of information come on top of it.

When does it become mandatory?

It depends on the country. The directive asked member states to apply it from 27 September 2026 (Art. 4). Germany, Austria and Italy already do; others, such as Spain and France, have not yet published their law. Until they do, the directive changes nothing for customers who live there.

In the meantime, what it will require can already be read in the directive and in the laws of the countries that apply it. If you get your shop ready now, you will not have to touch anything on the day each law comes out.

Where will the information have to appear?

In three places, and something different in each:

1. On the product page, all of it, before your customer buys (Art. 6(1) of Directive 2011/83/EU). That is where they decide.
2. Right before the order button, only the GARAN label, that is, the manufacturer's durability guarantee if there is one (Art. 8(2)). Updates and spare parts do not need repeating there.
3. In the order confirmation, all of it again, at the latest on delivery (Art. 8(7)). In practice that is the confirmation email, which your customer keeps and digs out when they need a part.

What if the manufacturer does not give me the information?

Then you do not have to show anything about updates or spare parts: the obligation only applies where the producer or provider makes the information available to the trader. You do not have to find it out yourself, let alone guess it.

But it is not a free pass. If the update commitment is published on the manufacturer's website or in its dealer portal, a competitor can argue that you had it. Check each brand once and note down what it declares and what it does not.

What happens if I get something wrong?

You are answerable for it. The information you give before the purchase becomes part of the contract (Art. 6(5) of Directive 2011/83/EU). If your product page gives a date until which there will be updates, you have promised that date to your customer, not the manufacturer.

Copy the information exactly as the manufacturer gives it, without rounding up. «Updates for years» or «easy to repair» are advertising, not information. And the same directive adds presenting a product as repairable when it is not to the list of unfair practices.

Can I call my shipping «eco-friendly»?

Better not. The directive asks you to state your environmentally friendly delivery options, if you have any. But it also bans claims like «eco-friendly» or «green» without a clear explanation next to them, and «carbon neutral» if it relies only on offsetting emissions.

Write what makes that option different: for example, that the whole order arrives in a single shipment, or what vehicle delivers it. In PrestaShop you do not need a module for this: each carrier has a name and a transit time that you write per language, and your customer sees both when choosing shipping.

What if I already sell to Germany, Austria or Italy?

Then it already affects you. If your shop targets those countries, for example with the site in their language and shipping there, a contract with a consumer who lives there is governed by the law of their country (Art. 6 of the Rome I Regulation).

In Germany and Italy it has applied since 27 September 2026, and in Austria to contracts concluded from that same date. In Germany, on top of that, a competitor can send you a formal warning letter over the breach (the Abmahnung), so that is the market where it is most urgent.

How do I do it in PrestaShop?

With a few products, you write the information into the description. With a large catalogue it becomes unmanageable, and when a manufacturer changes its commitment you have to edit page after page.

Many manufacturers give this information for the whole brand. That is why in the EU guarantee notice module you enter it once per brand, under «Manufacturer data». You can also do it per category or for a specific model, and the most specific information wins.

Your customer will see:

• On the product page, next to the buy button, a short «Software updates and repair» box with the manufacturer's information.
• Just above the order button (in PrestaShop 1.7, at the top of the payment step), the GARAN label of every product in the cart that has one: collapsed, and in full at the first click.
• In the confirmation email, the same information for every product bought, next to the guarantee notice.

If a brand gives nothing, you record that too: nothing shows in the shop, but you know you checked. Large catalogues you keep in a spreadsheet and upload again. And if a text is missing in one language, it does not show in that language, instead of appearing in another.

So the guarantee notice, the GARAN label and the new information all come from a single module, in the three places the rules set. If you sell to Germany, Austria or Italy, you need it today; for every other EU country, it will already be in place the day their law is published.