Sell merch, prints or downloads online
The moment you take money online you are a seller, and there is a disclosure rule almost no artist store complies with.
What reaches you, and in what order
Consumer Protection Act 1999
Act 599The Consumer Protection (Electronic Trade Transactions) Regulations 2024 replaced the 2012 Regulations on 25 December 2024, and the transition period ended on 24 June 2025. If you sell online you must display your name or business name, your registration number if you have one, your contact details including address, email and telephone, a description and the price of what you are selling, the payment methods, the estimated delivery terms and your returns and refund policy. The Regulations also require the information to be given in Bahasa Malaysia, with other languages allowed alongside it; KPDN suspended enforcement of that language rule in June 2025 and has not set a new date, but the rule itself has not been revoked. Most artist stores display none of this. Implied guarantees and the Tribunal for Consumer Claims apply either way, and the Tribunal can hear claims up to RM50,000.
Trademarks Act 2019
Act 815Your mark, and theirs. Putting someone else's logo on a shirt is the fastest route to a letter you cannot answer.
Industrial Designs Act 1996
Act 552** `File before you show it to anyone, anywhere. Once the design has been shown in public, even by you, it is no longer new and you cannot register it. There are only two exceptions, both six months: an official exhibition, or someone else leaking it without permission.
Trade Descriptions Act 2011
Act 730Counterfeit merchandise carrying a registered mark is prosecuted under Part XV of the Trademarks Act 2019, not under the trade description order route, which was repealed. The Trade Descriptions Act still reaches false claims about the goods themselves, such as origin, maker or composition, and that cuts in both directions.
Copyright Act 1987
Act 332Artwork, photographs and fonts on the product. The licence you bought for a font often does not cover merchandise.
Electronic Commerce Act 2006
Act 658Electronic contracts and signatures are legally effective, so your checkout terms bind.
Personal Data Protection Act 2010
Act 709Filming the room means processing other people's personal data. Since 1 June 2025 you must notify the Commissioner of a personal data breach as soon as practicable and no later than 72 hours after it happens, and then tell the affected people within 7 days of notifying the Commissioner where the breach causes or is likely to cause them significant harm. Note the trigger: the 72 hours runs from the breach happening, not from you finding out about it, and if you miss it you have to give the Commissioner a written explanation with supporting evidence. There is no size threshold on that duty. The data protection officer duty is different: it only bites if you process the personal data of 20,000 or more people, the sensitive personal data of 10,000 or more, or your core activity is regular and systematic monitoring. Almost no individual artist will reach that.
Service Tax Act 2018
Act 807Selling physical merch is selling goods, so the tax to look at first is sales tax under the Sales Tax Act 2018, not service tax. Sales tax bites on goods manufactured here by a registered manufacturer and on imports; if you buy in finished stock and resell it you are usually outside it, and if you have goods made to order ask whether the contract-manufacture rules catch you. Service tax under the Service Tax Act 2018 only matters if you are supplying a taxable service, and the rate and the registration threshold both depend on which service it is, so check the current schedule against RMCD rather than a remembered figure.
Companies Act 2016
Act 777The vehicle you sell through, and whether you chose one at all.
The e-commerce disclosure regulations are the quiet one. They are cheap to comply with and they are the first thing a complaint will point at.
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