E-Commerce Business Attorneys in New Jersey & NYC

B2B Contracts

For B2B transactions, e-commerce legal agreements are similar to any contract you would want to have formalized between your company and a third-party vendor. Instead of hiring a trucking company for deliveries, however, you might instead form a legal agreement to do business with a transaction processing merchant platform.

Indeed, many entrepreneurs or small businesses expanding into e-commerce rely on existing software solutions to manage and facilitate the online elements of their business. The companies providing these software tools often have their own boilerplate agreements, but these are often written to the advantage of the service provider you are hiring, not your business.

Our experienced e-commerce attorneys can review these legal agreements and flag potential issues before you build your company on a platform that could jeopardize your business long-term.

C2C Contracts

If your business is built on facilitating C2C transactions – think an online marketplace, like eBay – your business will need an overarching agreement for consumers to accept in order to use your service. A proper terms of service agreement should define your role in consumer-to-consumer sales and the extent of your responsibilities n the event of disputes. Ideally, you will want to shield your business from liability in dispute scenarios and chiefly define your company’s role as a platform, not an arbitrator.

C2B Contracts

Finally, think of C2B scenarios as hiring freelancers or independent contractors. Your business might require someone to write copy for your website or license photographs taken by an amateur photographer. Even though the work is done over the internet, your business still needs an appropriate agreement to define the terms of the relationship and the product or service being offered. Also, you want to gain the right licenses and permissions if you are relying on the intellectual property owned by a third party.

Whether you have been provided contracts from another online business or need to develop a legal agreement for the online arm of your company, our New Jersey e-commerce business attorneys can help. We can draft new legal agreements essential to your expanding business or assist in the review of existing contractual language to make sure your business is protected.

Platform Compliance for E-Commerce Businesses

As mentioned above, many businesses operating online are not the actual developers of the software architecture facilitating their e-commerce. Many will instead rely on existing software platforms for both front-end and back-end solutions, managing a range of categories essential to running their business.

Businesses often use third-party software solutions to aid in the following categories:

• Customer transactions and payment processing
• Customer support, including “live chat” functionality
• Website hosting, architecture, and management
• Billing and invoicing
• Human relations and payroll

If your business is in need of a solution in any of the above categories or even something else, you will probably evaluate options offered by other companies to determine which feature best suits your company’s needs. However, you need to consider more than the company’s pitch. Just as your business should have a terms of service agreement, the platform you are hoping to do business with likely does as well.

In order to do continued business with a platform, you will need to ensure that your business is compliant with its rules. It is important to determine if your company’s goals potentially conflict with the requirements of the platform before you build your business with their software.

Failure to exercise platform compliance can result in disastrous consequences for your business. A breach in compliance might prompt a platform to abruptly bar you from using their service and consequently halt all of your transactions, potentially crippling your company’s ability to do business.

It is even possible that breaking a platform’s terms could result in legal liabilities. Even a temporary inability to do business can be harmful to consumer confidence, so it is critical that your company regularly and proactively reviews its own business activity to ensure compliance with the platforms being utilized.

Litigation for E-Commerce Businesses

In any scenario, if you have a legal agreement in place and the other party fails to live up to it, you may be compelled to pursue litigation to resolve the problem. The same holds true in the world of e-commerce; if a digital business fails to provide an agreed-upon service despite remitted payment, or if a customer refuses to pay for a rendered service, the conflict may only be solved through legal action.

Our e-commerce business attorneys in New Jersey can assist in with:

• Commencing litigation
• Defending litigations
• And enforcement proceedings

Let M. Ross & Associates, LLC Help Protect Your E-Commerce Business

Expanding into e-commerce can introduce liability and contractual questions your business may not have experience with. We can help. At M. Ross & Associates, LLC, our New Jersey e-commerce lawyers have considerable experience in managing litigation and business transactions in numerous areas.

Whether your business wants to ensure platform compliance, needs help writing or reviewing legal agreements, terms of service or needs assistance pursuing collections, our legal team is committed to providing legal guidance and solutions for your business.